Mutiny on the Caritas
by Kodiak Bear Country
Summary: Phase generators, slavers, spaceships and gun battles!
1. Chapter 1

Title: Mutiny on the CaritasAuthor: Kodiak Bear  
Rating: T  
Status: Complete (three parts total, the other two are with my beta at the final stage and I should be putting up part two tomorrow and three if it comes back from my beta along with part two)  
Warnings: Some language content  
Spoilers: Anything up to the end of season two.  
Summary: Phase generators, slavers, spaceships and gun battles!

AN: This fic was a long labor of love, and I've got to give credit where credit is due. Thank you Tazmy, for the invaluable beta help and encouragement. Thank you Linzi, for being there, reading copy after copy, cheering me on and telling me that it was actually coming out good and to keep writing, and then for more moral support constantly. There aren't words, hon! Also, Gaffer, my grammar God, thank you! And last but not least, a special thanks to the Gateworld Sheppard whump thread – when I was losing ground on this fic, you all welcomed me in and made me want to keep writing!

**Mutiny on the Caritas**

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**

"What did you do wrong?" The aging teacher towered over the young boy, arms folded.

The boy's lower lip jutted stubbornly. He hadn't done anything wrong. The goal had been to get his squad safely across the river, past the enemy camp, without being detected, and that's exactly what he'd done. But he had been in training long enough to know, despite his feelings that his teacher was the one that was wrong, he wasn't to say it out loud. Instead, he stood tall, refusing to say that he didn't know, but also refusing to say he'd been right. Either one would be a mistake.

Teacher Delwin frowned at the boy, but didn't lecture. He unfolded his arms, and laying one on the child's back, guided him forward down the path that wound up and through Ground Training Station One on the far side of the river. Without speaking, he took the boy to the bank of the sluggish flowing water and gestured for him to sit. When the boy did, the teacher moved behind and abruptly shoved forward. The boy, unprepared, found himself unable to stop from falling in.

It wasn't deep and the only thing hurt was his pride, but he slipped getting to his feet and wound up sitting in the cool water. Confusion twisted away his earlier stubborn refusal to speak and he asked, "Why?"

"Because you trusted me."

The boy's eyebrows furrowed and he shook his head, his shoulder length braids moving in tandem. "I don't understand. You're my teacher. I'm supposed to trust you."

Delwin smiled briefly before offering a hand to the boy. When the child took it, he pulled him back to the dry shore and let him sit, pulling off his leather shoes. "No, you shouldn't. Just as you shouldn't have trusted the young boy from Devoss."

The other boy had recently been demoted from Devoss barracks for failure to progress, and he'd had all the information Ronon had needed to see his own squad safely through their perimeter defenses without them even knowing. Ronon had seen the advantage and used it, and he wasn't ready to accept the lesson on face value without offering his own opinion. "That's stupid. If we can't trust anyone, how can we ever accomplish anything?" He pinched water from his hair. "Besides, I got my squad to our objective without any losses."

The earlier feel of lazy correction evaporated. Delwin dropped to the ground beside Ronon and very seriously picked up a pebble. "Do you see this?"

It was a rock. Ronon shrugged, thinking Delwin was a paranoid old man, and maybe beginning to lose his mind. "I see it, Teacher." He got himself back on track, finding the deferential tone he should've used from the beginning.

"The tiniest of things," explained Delwin. "Can be a weapon." Without blinking, he threw it at Ronon's head, hard. It hit soundly on his temple and made him wince, but he bit down the outraged cry. "See how little you understand? Trust is like that pebble. It can seem insignificant, something you don't think of, until it hits you hard on the head, or pushes you in the river." Delwin rubbed his arm, the one with the large scar that Ronon always saw when they exercised in the hot summer days or worked on water skills. "Never trust, Ronon. No one is above making the wrong choices. For what they see as good or evil, you can only trust yourself." The probing eyes of his teacher pierced him. "Your tactics were solid, but where you were wrong was in taking Avon's words as truth. If he'd had loyalty to his original training squad, your team would now be in enemy hands. You trusted blindly, and you must not do that, ever again." He reached a thumb and rubbed on the swelling knot, catching Ronon's chin with his other hand. "Do you understand?"

The boy nodded. He understood.

OoO

Sheppard told me once that life wasn't black and white, that sometimes things were gray. I'd told him that was stupid because life wasn't black, white or gray. There were a lot of colors in between. McKay had snorted, Sheppard had smacked him on the head, and Teyla had cringed before explaining, "It is one of their many sayings, Ronon."

I'd eventually figured out he'd meant that decisions weren't as simple as "shoot 'em", which was kind of how I saw things. I don't make apologies for who I am. Sheppard's people are weird, but in a way that I can live with, because above all else, they've got the same goal that I do. Kill the Wraith.

Their methods though, sometimes I've got issues with them. They gate to worlds and try to make allies, and they are only finding out what I could've told them, what I did tell them, and that was that most of these so called allies would just as soon hand them over to the enemies and try to save their own pitiful lives than make life long friendships. When you're staring death in the face and someone points a gun at the other guy and says, "What it'll be?" you nod your head and run. If the other guy dies for you, then you've just gotten away to live for another day.

Didn't mean it was good, didn't mean it was fair, it just was what it was. Someone is going to die, and it was always better if it wasn't you.

I checked my gun, slid it carefully into the holster on my thigh. My back still felt naked without my sword, but they'd taken it from me on the Hive ship, and there hadn't been time to worry about getting it back when we ran for our lives.

As Sheppard dealt with last minute instructions from Weir, McKay shouted at the other doctor with the accent, Zelenka, about a new piece of technology we were trying out on our mission. The planet fit McKay's needs -- something about magnetic fields and interference. All I had been able to figure was that the small oblong rock was some kind of phase generator. I'd considered asking what it did, but McKay had that frantic look on him today and it'd be easier to get an answer from Sheppard later.

Waiting to leave was eating on my nerves. Usually we gathered, waved goodbye -- least Sheppard did -- then we left, but today I was standing restlessly beside Teyla while she watched Sheppard discuss something with Weir. I wondered if they'd miss me if I headed back for a second breakfast. That made me think of McKay and when I looked his way he was now standing loosely by Sheppard. We were only a couple of bravos away -- _meters_.

When I'd first used the term in front of him, McKay had looked at me cross-eyed and demanded to see what the length of one bravos was, and when I showed him, he declared it a meter and said to stop talking in alien measurements. I'd asked him why, and he'd regarded me shrewdly, said something about 'when in Rome' and handed a sheet of paper to me. He'd wanted me to list all the units of measurements, and make a conversion chart. I'd pushed the paper back and said, "One bravos is one meter. I can handle that." It was a lot easier than trying to remember things I hadn't had to since I passed my primaries.

McKay mumbled something to Sheppard while he checked his vest, and waved a hand at the tall guy sitting behind the console. I had no idea what that guy's name was. There were more people in this city than I was used to dealing with in all my previous seven years on the run, and I wasn't even sure they'd be around long enough to make it worth memorizing names and faces. All I cared about was that the hand signal meant we were about to get moving.

I turned away from the gate, to see what, or who, was causing a commotion at the left entrance to the gateroom.

"I don't know why I've been assigned to this mission," Beckett blustered. He pulled up short and surveyed the team he'd been 'assigned to' a worried look replacing the irritated one from before when his eyes fell on all of us in turn. "Bloody hell," he swore and lifted plaintive eyes to Weir. "No offense to Colonel Sheppard, but his team attracts more bad luck than all the others. If you insist on off world experience, fine, but another team." His eyes gleamed with what I recognized as someone scheming. "In fact," he continued spinning back towards the stairway exit, "another day would be best. I've got an unexpected patient and Elaine may be completely capable but I prefer --"

"Are you implying that we're jinxed?" Sheppard asked casually.

I recognized the laid back posture he'd adopted. He was amused, but I could also tell he wasn't going to back down on Beckett's presence anymore than I could tell Weir would, because both showed a similar lack of sympathy. I might have smiled wolfishly at Beckett also, because while we did seem to attract a lot of trouble -- as he put it-- we also made it back more or less alive every time. Least, so far. "Don't worry, Doc," I offered magnanimously. "I'll stay close."

McKay snorted, but when I turned, daring him to say more, he snapped his mouth shut and turned to Teyla, "See, this is why I would've only accepted properly trained guard dogs on the team, unlike some people…" he looked pointedly at Sheppard.

Weir lifted a hand to her head and rubbed a spot above her eye. "Carson, you need to be there in case there are any physical problems with the phase generator," she reminded him. "Rodney, please be careful." She didn't wait for the reply, taking the moment of silence to escape upward towards the control deck. I always could respect a well-timed retreat.

I looked at McKay, waiting.

"What?"

"Nothing," I rumbled. Just because I'd expected him to do better than remain quiet to Weir's veiled insult --

"Fine, but for the record, I'm always careful." He shot an irritated look at Sheppard. "Why do you think I always have him test devices first? It certainly isn't because his gene is superior to mine."

The gate activated, drowning out Sheppard's annoyed retort and I shrugged my shoulders a little in my coat, loosening up for the mission ahead. Sheppard walked till he was alongside me. "Ready, big guy?"

I looked down at him. I was taller than all of them, except for that Athosian, Halling, but he wasn't on any teams. Instead, he liked to live the peaceful life on the mainland, farming and caring for kids. I knew Halling wasn't weak, but I couldn't agree with his choice. Let the old care for the young, the capable needed to be out there, doing the ugly job of protecting everyone else.

He took my grin as an affirmative, which it was. McKay and Teyla came up until we all four stood in a line, and then Beckett reluctantly joined us, his hand clenching and unclenching around the handle of his case. He pursed his lips together as if steeling himself for the trip before he too nodded. He hadn't forgotten what had happened the last mission he'd been on with us; Ellia and Sheppard's infection with the retrovirus that he hadn't meant for anyone to get exposed to. I could understand his feelings -- that mission had been one problem after another.

Sheppard took the lead and we all followed into the wormhole.

When we stepped through on the other side, Sheppard stayed near McKay, while Teyla and I split to each side. McKay already had his scanner out and was working, but I wasn't sure what he hoped to find. The area around the gate was barren --the ground scoured down to red dirt from winds that even now blew over us in hot gusts. I frowned as a strong one seemed to send Sheppard backwards a little. As I broke off to the right, I also noticed there weren't any trees around. It was clear horizon as far as the eye could see, except for the ruins ahead. Beckett surprised me by walking alongside me while I began to secure the perimeter.

We had a routine. First thing was scout for any Wraith or other enemies, while Sheppard protected McKay and McKay started looking for power -- because that was their primary mission, power. Allies were a necessary part of their objective. The natives often had information to the locations of possible energy sources and that meant playing nice with the locals. But I hadn't had to worry about a civilian walking along with me before while I did my scouting and Beckett's nervousness was making me nervous. It didn't help that once we left the area immediate to the 'gate, the outer reaches of a ruined city began. Too many places for enemies to lie in wait to spring an ambush.

I'd seen a lot of ruined cities, and this was just one more to add to the growing list. The only thing different is that this world had been destroyed a longer time ago than most. I knelt in the ground and dug my fingers into the dust, bringing it up to my nose and smelling. Minerals and nothing else. It'd definitely been dead a while. I let the dry dust fall away and stood, scanning the ruins ahead with my eyes. I tightened my knuckles and loosened them again, getting ready. The road that led from the 'gate to the city was long gone, the only defining proof that it existed was an opening leading in to where no crumbled stone and roof rested. I narrowed my eyes at the closest pile of debris. The homes here had been mostly one level from the looks of what was left, the faded colors still noticeable despite the sand blasting into it from the wind for how many years I couldn't begin to guess, and didn't really care to. I had a hard time thinking we'd find any source of power here that they could use.

I supposed though, that this mission would be a little different. We would still look for an energy source, or anything that might lead us to one, but McKay was mostly here to test out the device, to see how it worked away from the city and any interference. I had heard enough to know they wanted to see if its power source was tied into the city or if it would function separate on another world.

"And how've you been, Ronon?" asked Beckett.

I looked over at him and recognized he was fighting to keep a tight control on his anxiety. Doc here wasn't really cut out for missions, but he managed in times of need, like the time he'd had to go on an egg hunt to try and save Sheppard's life. That didn't mean he liked it, though, or that he didn't get nervous every time. I knew a lot of people that would've seen his fear as a weakness, but like McKay, fear could be a good thing and losing that fear could cost a person their life. "Been good," I replied.

"Really?" he answered, and his tone clued me in to the fact that I'd blundered somewhere. "Because you never showed up for your last physical."

"I get a physical every time we go through the 'gate."

"A thorough physical, son -- not the quick exam that certifies you aren't dying and can travel through the wormhole."

Okay, maybe Beckett needed a little bit more fear. I scowled his way and grunted. Let him figure it out.

"Don't go grunting at me. I've dealt with more obnoxious patients than you --"

"Bigger and stronger?" I added.

His feet stumbled but he recovered before saying firmly, "No, not exactly, but I've patched you up enough to know you wouldn't hurt me unless I was threatening your life, so stop acting like a prickly bear."

I wasn't sure whether to take it as a compliment or be pissed -- now there was a word I liked. Pissed. Sheppard had used it a while back and while I wasn't McKay smart, I got that he wasn't talking about peeing all over himself. But anyway, I had a reputation. I was bigger than they were, stronger, and I could bring them all down in a fight, but here was one of their more timid members telling me that I didn't come across as threatening or even intimidating, and while he was right that I wouldn't harm a hair on his head unless I had too -- I'd learned my lesson in 'had too' when Sheppard had been possessed and Weir had shot me -- I still wanted people to think I would. "Not even a little?" I asked, and it came out more like a growl.

"Initially, sure," he backpedaled. "Now, 'fraid not, you're like the wee beastie that only wants to be loved."

"You're wrong about that, Doc," I said abruptly, and before he could apologize or say anything else, I found something to go look at. I liked Beckett but he'd crossed a line, invading personal ground. I wasn't prepared to talk about any needs I might have.

I was learning more about them then they were learning about me, and I liked it that way just fine. I'd seen a lot more than they could ever fathom. Doc had saved me, he'd cut out that tracker that had sentenced me to a short harsh life with an ugly end, and no one had felt it slipping away more than I did, so I was thankful, but he didn't need to know how far down the darkness in me went.

When Ford had saved my life, I was convinced it'd been the end. Maybe part of me had already given up and that's why the Wraith had managed to get the drop on me to begin with, but whatever the reason, I'd known I was reaching the finish. I might have survived for seven years, but one thing I'd stopped being along the way, was a person worthy of love. I'd stopped that a long time ago. Now I settled for taking out as much of the enemy as I could before I died.

I supposed Beckett realized he'd stepped in dangerous water because he had settled for doing his own survey of the planet while I did mine. This world wasn't one I'd heard about, and neither had Teyla. Looking around, I figured the reason why was because there wasn't anything left to trade with. The hard thing about this place was that it reminded me of Sateda, just not as fresh. The Wraith had preferred to cull sparingly, but every now and then, they'd wipe an entire civilization out of existence. It'd happened to my people, and it'd happened here. Sweeping my eyes to the left, I saw some larger buildings partially crumbled closer to the center of the city. Still lots of places to hide for an ambush, and the uneasiness I'd felt earlier stuck around.

As I moved into the outer perimeter of the city, my feet crunched on broken dishes and other discarded and destroyed rubble from this place that had apparently once rivaled any advanced ones that I'd seen, and I'm not saying I'd seen a lot, because I hadn't. And the ones I had, they were all deserted and crumbling, just like this one. The Wraith didn't like to leave anyone nearing a technological level where they'd present a threat.

"Ronon." Sheppard's voice crackled across the radio and I paused. "See anything?"

I looked over my shoulder, surprised at the distance we'd already covered. I couldn't see their faces anymore, just blurry uniforms. I tapped the radio. "Nothing here but debris," I admitted. I wished there was more, because this wasn't looking promising, and their fortune had become my fortune, and alternately, hopefully, the Wraith's _mis_fortune. No power meant continued danger if the Wraith attacked Atlantis again.

I'd managed to shake off my earlier gloom from Beckett's misstep and I looked over at him. We still had McKay's experiment. Sheppard's voice came back, and he sighed in disappointment. I could hear McKay asking something in the background but whatever it was, he ignored it and told me to keep looking and they'd meet up with us at the city center.

I turned to head back on the road that I'd managed to see under all the layers of dust and decay, but I heard a surprised shout from Doc, and as I looked back to see what was wrong, something hit me in the chest and I didn't even have time to warn the others.

OoO

Waking up sucked. That was another word I'd picked up, this time from McKay, because all jumbled up in the big words he tended to use was this one that kept cropping up at all the best times and usually I kind of agreed with his assessment, even if I did thrive on the rush of getting us out of the situations we were in. This time though, I wasn't feeling good enough to enjoy the thrill. It just sucked.

The Doc and I came around first, having been the first caught I guessed. I'd thought it earlier -- good place for an ambush, and we'd walked right into it. We were in a dark cell with three metal walls and the fourth had a thin door in the middle, the only window was set up high so whoever was lucky enough to be on the other side could look in at the ones captured.

I didn't hold back the moan from protesting muscles and Beckett didn't pause to worry about his own hurts, instead, he crawled to me and started fussing like he tended to do. He grabbed my wrist to take my pulse, only to frown and look closer, turning my hand over.

"What?"

Beckett rubbed a thumb along the middle of my arm, as if tracing the pattern of a blood vessel. "They've done something," he muttered to himself. He dropped my wrist and turned his over, palm side up, and studied his own. I was looking at his and mine, and we both had matching thin red scars running up our right arm.

My heart pounded and I felt sweaty. "Get it out," I growled. If I'd had my knife, I would've cut it out then and there.

"I can't." Doc was pushing and feeling along his arm. "Whatever's in there, it's too deep. I can't feel it." His eyes met mine and he looked both terrified and apologetic. "I'm sorry, Ronon."

I flashed back to the moment when the Wraith had stuck the tracker in me, and the panic I'd felt then flooded back through my body now. I breathed out through my nostrils, took a deep breath in and I forced the panic down. This wasn't the Wraith. It wasn't. Besides, the aches running throughout my body were enough to deal with for now. Whatever this thing in our arms was, it'd wait. We'd get out of here and back to Atlantis, then Beckett could remove them.

"Whatever that weapon was, it's worse than the stunner used by the Wraith. I think it has a component to help prolong the victim's recovery," he explained after he finished checking me over. "You're body is going to ache like it's been pounded, but you'll live."

I inhaled deeply, feeling the pull of soreness deep in my chest and back with the brief movement and asked, "What about you?"

Beckett winced as he climbed to his feet. "I'll live, too." His eyes locked onto the crumpled forms of the other three members. "Let's see if they've got the same mark on their wrists."

That wasn't really answering my question but his brush-off didn't surprise me. I'd overheard one of the nurses complaining about Beckett's inability to care for himself because he was always too busy worrying about everyone else. Now he was doing the same thing. He stooped down to each person. First Sheppard, then McKay until finally, Teyla. They were all on the floor in awkward positions. Probably how they'd been dragged in. After he was satisfied they were going to be okay, he waved me over, "They've each got whatever it is we've got in our arms. Help me get them more comfortable."

I didn't point out that no one had helped us 'get more comfortable', but I guess that's the bane of being captured first. First stunned, first to wake up, and maybe our soreness was in part that no one had eased our bodies into better positions. I wasn't a complainer but as I stood, I grunted from the effort of keeping my mouth shut.

We straightened their legs and arms, got them lined up along the wall, and I searched for something to use as blankets or pillows but came up empty. The room was bare and not even our packs had been left. 'Course that was the only smart thing these people had done. They'd made a big mistake in capturing us in the first place, one I vowed they'd regret.

"What do they want?"

I'd been thinking about the same thing and might've been too preoccupied by it because I only now noticed Beckett had moved over and was sitting between Sheppard and McKay, looking pale and worried. I supposed time without having anything to do had let him think too much on what would happen when our captors arrived. "Don't know," I grunted. Truthfully, I didn't. But I could guess.

The galaxy was full of different kinds of people, all with one thing in common. They were trying to survive. Some did it by farming, some did it by trading, and some did it by living off others. Scavengers, predators, slavers -- any way you looked at it, they lived off other's misfortunes. In a galaxy where civilizations lost too many able bodied workers to cullings, a slave market made for a booming business. It was an underbelly the Earthers hadn't seen yet, partly because of Teyla's influence, partly because of chance. Might be that their luck had run out.

"Whatever they want, give it to them," I said, pitching my voice low enough for just the two of us to hear in case there was anyone around that we couldn't see. His face screwed up with uncertainty and I pushed harder because I knew his life depended on it. "Doc, don't try to hold back. You won't be able to and all it will get you is dead."

Beckett wasn't stupid, but this was the first time he'd been in this position and I could see the impact of it was hitting him hard. Interrogated, tortured, _sold_ -- he'd never endured it, or seen it, and now he was getting the lesson the hard way.

Groans from Sheppard pulled his attention off our situation and he began to prompt the colonel into answering questions about what he last remembered, what was his name and how did he feel.

"Bad guys with guns, John Sheppard, and like crap," he mumbled, still blinking away the stun effects. He was helped into a sitting position and quickly locked onto me. "What the hell happened?"

His demand had been a generalized one but I still blamed myself for all of this because Beckett and I had been the first captured, which meant, if I'd been doing my job better we all wouldn't be here right now. I'd known the potential was there and yet I hadn't been able to even get a warning off. If I had, they could've gone for reinforcements. Instead, I'd been taken by surprise, and now we were all screwed.

One thing I had to like about Sheppard's people was their inventive use of language. Pissed, sucked, screwed -- I had picked up a few more, too, but those ones Sheppard had gotten upset about when I'd used them in front of Weir. I saved them for special occasions now.

"We were caught."

That was about when he caught a glimpse of my wrist, started to say something, looked at his, and got angry. "Son of a bitch, what is this?"

"We don't know, Colonel." Beckett held up his wrist to show his own scar. "We woke up before you and found them – whatever it is, it's deep, and my guess is getting it out would be dangerous in these conditions."

McKay woke abruptly, flailing about until Beckett calmed him. When he looked around the cell his face went through stages of annoyance, fear and then outrage. "What is it with this galaxy?" he demanded. "Seriously, is there some kind of cosmic crapper where all the shit rolls into one and it's this one?" He exhaled loudly, slammed his eyes shut and said, "Forget it, don't answer, it was rhetorical anyway. I'm a scientist, I make hypotheses every day based on observations and I'm going to go with yes on this one."

Sheppard held out his arm and pulled the sleeve of his jacket enough so that McKay could clearly see the scar.

"What?" McKay practically ripped his sleeve off. "Oh, no."

"Before you ask, they don't know." Sheppard dropped his sleeve back over his wrist. "And I don't either, but my guess, it's not a chip to make sure we don't get lost."

"Now that you two are awake," Beckett interrupted. "We've got a problem." He looked at me, then Sheppard before skipping past McKay. "I realize this isn't unusual for the lot of you, but seeing how being stunned and imprisoned is a relatively new experience for me -- what do we do now?"

Sheppard looked accusingly at me and I shrugged. "Don't look at me," I said. "I already told him."

Exasperated, Beckett crawled over Rodney, ignoring his protested cries of 'ow' and 'watch it, Carson' to check on Teyla. She was still blissfully unaware of our situation and I supposed Doc there was worried that she was the last to wake, but she was also the smallest of everyone, though I'd be the last to say it to her face. Smallest didn't translate to least dangerous. "You told me to tell them what they wanted, which doesn't exactly inspire confidence," he remonstrated. "I was hoping more for an escape plan."

The sound of silence greeted his words and he looked expectantly at me, Sheppard and then McKay. "Welcome to my life," McKay said irritably.

"Did you think we had a playbook to go by or something?" Sheppard added, raising an eyebrow.

I enjoyed a slow grin. Not that the situation was all that funny, but like I said, there was a large part of me that got off on this kind of stuff. When everything went right it was boring, besides, I really was going to make sure these guys, whoever they were, regretted the day their parents met each other. I'd been taken by surprise and that alone was something I had to make them pay for. "We'll get out of here."

"In one piece?"

Shrugging, I stood and moved towards the door leading out of our cell. "More or less."

"Oh, that's reassuring," interjected McKay. I heard scuffling sounds and soon he was up on his feet and trying to peer through the small window alongside me. "If we can get to our things I've got a plan."

"Play dead?" poked Sheppard.

I snorted, but before we could dig in and start bickering full force, Teyla moaned and joined the rest of us. She was confused, and thought at first we were back on Atlantis, but in a few minutes time she'd gotten her thoughts unscrambled and waved off Beckett.

"I am fine."

"I wouldn't say any of us are fine, lass," Beckett argued. "But I suppose you'll live."

We all waited for her to discover the mark on her wrist.

"What is…" She looked up to find us each holding up our right wrist. "I see."

Sheppard's mouth crooked into a grin. "I don't think they want us to get away."

Her serious eyes met mine, and I got the feeling she could see right through me, down to the panic I was fighting to control. I broke the eye contact first, satisfied that Teyla was going to be okay. I went back to looking along the door, searching for any weaknesses in the metal.

McKay had joined me, but suddenly stopped, and cocked his head upwards towards the low ceiling before I saw his face slacken from irritation to exasperation

"No," he declared. "No, no no, this can not be happening!"

I'd stopped caressing the door, Sheppard had stopped talking to Beckett and Teyla, and all of us stared at McKay, waiting for him to drop the news that I was pretty sure would not make our day. If it made McKay look like that, I reasoned it wasn't going to make any of us look much better.

Sheppard left Teyla's side and stepped across the cell till he was next to McKay. "Assuming you're not losing your mind and talking to yourself, what is happening that you don't want to be?"

McKay glared at the ceiling before throwing his hands up in disgust. He finally turned to face us. "We're on a spaceship."

I tossed a look at Sheppard, questioning without asking. He shrugged at me.

"Look!" Exasperated, McKay latched on to Sheppard's hand and thrust it against the floor. "Vibrations," he explained to me as I watched Sheppard's face go through the same emotions in less time than McKay. Surprise, exasperation, annoyance –

"Son of a bitch." Sheppard cursed softly. His eyes met McKay's and they said something to each other with their look that I couldn't interpret, but I didn't need to. If we were on a ship, that meant we weren't on the planet, and that meant there would be no rescue party. I turned away, trying to hide my growing frustration. I never should've been caught in the open like that, and a year ago, even months ago, I wouldn't have. I'd known it was dangerous ground and I'd still walked into it.

Behind me, I heard McKay explain to Sheppard that we needed to get access to our bags and he mentioned the phase generator. I hadn't gotten an explanation for what the thing did so I wasn't entirely clear on why it mattered, but I had a knife sewn into my pack in a place that a casual search would probably miss so I agreed with McKay's plan. None of my other knives hidden on me had survived their search -- it'd been the first thing I'd checked after I'd calmed down from finding the scar on my wrist. They'd been more thorough than the Wraith, but considering that the Wraith were more interested in eating than believing their food could fight back, it wasn't such a surprise.

"How are we going to get off this ship?" Beckett asked sharply. "You can make yourself as invisible as you like, Rodney, but that's not going to let any of us breathe in space."

I frowned at the Doc, who wasn't looking at me anyway, then caught Teyla's appraising glance. I shuffled to the far right wall and leaned heavily against it, needing to think. That stunner they'd used had packed a hit to it, and now I knew what the phase generator did. Invisibility -- Doc was right about that, it wasn't going to help us much on a space ship.

Sheppard wasn't as easily discouraged. "Every ship has a life boat, Doc."

McKay snorted. "Like the Titanic."

I didn't get the reference anymore than Teyla did, but Beckett rolled his eyes. "Rodney, the Titanic had life boats, and five people are a wee bit less than thousands. Colonel Sheppard's right, we can find an escape pod."

"Hello -- did you forget about these?" McKay lifted his right hand and pulled the sleeve back. "What if it's a device that explodes after the individual gets a certain distance away, or releases some kind of virulent poison?"

"Then I guess I'll put you in the front." Sheppard's dry reply made me snicker.

"I am certain we will find out soon enough what they do." Teyla spoiled the fun. She was right, though. Whoever was behind this had inserted them in our arms for a reason and my guess was they'd make that reason clear when they came to find out more about who we were and give us the rules. I was pretty sure they were slavers -- scavengers tended to take what you had and leave you for dead.

We couldn't plan for what we didn't know, not yet, so it came down to us needing access to our gear. Either way, our escape would be a lot more likely if we could get our hands on this phase generator of McKay's and my knife.

I folded my arms to try and relieve some of the ache. "How much do you want to play these guys?" I asked Sheppard. "I don't think they went through this trouble to set up a treaty."

Beckett had been right about one thing when he'd said we'd all gone through this before. We'd done it a few times, in different circumstances, but all it'd taken was once for us to realize we needed a plan for times like these. Inevitably, the bad guys wanted information, and if you could convince them you were giving them what they wanted, it usually went easier on you.

McKay glared at Sheppard. "Once again, I reiterate, this is a bad idea, because once they figure out we're playing games, we are screwed. Bad guys do bad things when they get angry."

I grinned and raised an eyebrow. "I can do bad things."

"All we need is time," Sheppard reasoned, interrupting McKay before he could respond. "Besides, Rodney, your plan might actually work. We can lull them by being cooperative, get our gear, and then you can go hunting for a way off this boat."

"I do not want to be Leia again," Teyla said stiffly.

I made the mistake of grinning wider, but McKay took the pressure off me when he snickered and drew Teyla's wrath onto him. He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender but added, "What are you complaining for -- it wasn't like you were the one made to wear that awful hair style or ..."

"McKay," Sheppard interrupted. "Shut up."

Figures, I was kind of curious what he'd been about to say. Despite McKay's inferior abilities as a fighter, we liked a lot of the same things. Women, food -- we'd watched the movies while we'd been off the mission roster to recover from the last beatings we'd suffered. That time we'd been Han, Luke, Leia and Chewbacca, and I had to admit, I wouldn't mind seeing Teyla in that bikini.

"Farscape?" McKay said, ignoring Sheppard's order. He slid an appraising look at Teyla. "You can be Aeryn Sun, a peacekeeper female with a very bad attitude."

I didn't recognize the show anymore than Teyla did but I had to (silently) agree with McKay's choice. Teyla could have a very bad attitude if you didn't do what she wanted you to do. I'd been on the end of it before, and I know McKay had, also.

She got a little irritated at McKay's description. "If she can hold her own and not rely on men to rescue her then --" she paused, waiting for McKay to answer.

"She can definitely hold her own, in fact," he said. "She kicks Crichton's butt every time, and just for you, Sheppard can play the role of John Crichton, first name's the same so it's less hardship for him to remember."

"Aeryn Sun." She echoed the name and gave Sheppard a satisfied smile. I kind of got the impression she was remembering one of their training sessions -- the ones where she kept beating him up with those sticks of hers.

I grinned. "Everyone can kick Sheppard's --"

"Hey," he responded. "I get it." He glared at McKay. "I can kick yours."

Beckett cleared his throat. "Let me get this straight -- you take on fictional characters and use them to give information?" He checked for all of us to shrug in affirmation before his face collapsed in shock. "And this works?" he asked, stunned.

"You have to make them work for it," I explained. "If you give it up too easily they'll probably hit you harder." I said it as a word of warning but he got kind of shaky and sort of collapsed further into himself. Huh, probably shouldn't have said that.

McKay had paled slightly, too, but he forced himself to keep upright. "Less for us, Carson, trust me. They can smell 'coward' like rotting food. A couple of good punches and you can sing like a canary and they'll believe it."

Sheppard cleared his throat purposefully and I figured he was trying to tell me enough of the mental torture on Beckett's part. I supposed it was a lot to take in on your first time, but my first time had amounted to a Wraith shoving a tracker in my back so I probably wasn't the best guy to go to for sympathy. He narrowed his eyes at the sound of a door opening somewhere outside of our cell and in a place where we couldn't see -- not that we could see much to begin with. He quickly turned, jerking his head at the rear of the cell for us to all get together.

"Okay, Farscape it is. I'm John Crichton, long lost astronaut. Met up with you guys on this side of the wormhole." His face kind of twisted but I didn't know what he'd found funny. "Ronon, you're D'Argo, big alien guy that's been on the run from the bad guys -- it'll fit in case they recognize the scar on your neck, so not that hard for you either, and Teyla's Aeryn Sun, separated from her people."

McKay frowned at me and said, "If he's D'Argo, who am I?"

"Crais?"

"What?" he whipped out fast. The footsteps were coming closer and I wanted to remind them that time was running out. Being caught discussing your secret identities kind of ruined the secret part.

Beckett interrupted and did it for me. "Shut up, Rodney. They're almost here. I'll be…who the bloody hell will I be?"

"Maybe we should have stayed with Star Wars," Teyla murmured somewhat apologetically, because we'd had those down pretty good. Switching at the last minute was probably going to cause us more problems then we needed.

"Overused," insisted Sheppard. "Word's probably gotten around so this is a good idea to change. McKay, forget Crais, you're not mean enough anyway. You're Rygel, Beckett, you're Stark."

Neither one of them looked happy, but our time was up, and the door of our cell was making an odd clicking sound. McKay still managed to mutter, "There will be paybacks for this." But if Sheppard heard, his attention was where it needed to be, and that was on the door now opening to reveal four figures standing on the wrong side of our life, guns in hand, and looking just as I'd figured. Their clothing was rough, enough that I knew I was right about the slaver guess. They were all big, but they weren't bigger than me, and I grinned wolfishly at the man I judged to be in charge. I wanted to make sure he knew he was mine.

He stepped forward while his three companions kept their weapons trained on us. He looked like almost anyone, the same middle age that most people were everywhere you turned, some weathered lines on his face to show he'd been around long enough to not be fooled easily. His brown hair was cut close to keep away bugs, but his pale skin was darkened with dirt and grime, probably grease from the ship. A lot of slavers also did their own mechanical work so no one could find out what the ship's capabilities were.

"Welcome to the Caritas," he said pleasantly. "I'm Varak."

Sheppard tried to look bored, but I saw his careful assessment of our situation. They were all armed, though Varak kept his gun tucked into the holster on his stained brown leather pants. They all wore the same uniform, it was the color of the shirts that were different, and maybe that indicated rank in their group. Varak had a black shirt tucked into his pants, while the other three wore faded green.

"Not to seem ungrateful," Sheppard said. "But we've had better accommodations."

The man's eyes narrowed as he stepped closer to Sheppard, making my muscles tense. "It can get better -- or it can get worse." He looked around until he found me. "Runner. I'd like to hear the story of how you managed to escape the Wraith and get the device removed?"

"I'd like you to put us back where you found us."

Varak's mouth curled in a cruel smile. "I guess I'll have to find out the hard way."

I stared ahead, unconcerned. "Guess so." He could try.

McKay pushed past me until he was closer to Varak. When the three green guards raised their weapons he stopped. "I'm not going to attack a man backed by three armed men." His tone of voice implied just how stupid he thought they were for thinking that of him. "What is this?" He grabbed my wrist and flipped it.

I yanked it back and shot him a filthy look. He had his own wrist.

"That is identification and tracking." Varak pulled a card from his pocket and held it aloft between two fingers. "In case you hadn't guessed, you are now my property and that is how sales of ownership are passed from person to person. Everything from the time we caught you goes onto the chip, including your medical history. We did a brief exam while you were unconscious, but we need to know as much as we can…safely…get from you. Where are you from? We've been through your equipment and I know you aren't from Norana."

"Melmac." McKay's smug grin betrayed it for the lie that it was.

I watched as Varak's attention slid from all of us to just McKay, and I watched as Sheppard noticed it, too. He cleared his throat and continued to act as if we were sitting around a table with casual acquaintances instead of being held in a cell, on a spaceship bound somewhere we didn't want to go, with guns pointed at us, and had just been told we were slaves.

"I'm sure you'd love to know." Sheppard was standing next to me. Teyla, Beckett and McKay -- after realizing he'd drawn unwanted attention -- had moved slightly behind Sheppard and I. It gave too much away, letting Varak get a sense for who was the weaker links in our group. They wouldn't find one in Teyla, but McKay and Beckett weren't prepared for this.

It was too late to change now but I pretended to need the support of the wall so I could drop back with them and add a little confusion to the hierarchy of our strengths. Let them work to figure out who was who. Sheppard was in charge and that was something he wasn't going to pretend otherwise with. I knew he wanted them to know it, and to come after him because of it. "But here's an idea," he continued on. "Why don't you give us our things, and we'll make nice and discuss things like civilized people?"

I heard the hopeful edge but knew he was being optimistic again. I recognized the look in Varak's face, and the three guards were exact copies minus the position of power. There wasn't going to be any reasoning. They had us, they knew it and we knew it -- the rest was only a matter of time. The upside, if they were slavers, they wouldn't do any permanent damage, because that'd only cost them money, and one thing mercenaries like Varak prized, was money.

The middle guy in the faded green shirt and dirty spiked blond hair shook his head pleasantly, answering for his boss. "I don't think so."

Varak grinned and tapped a finger to his forehead and said, "But here's a thought -- why don't you come with me, and we'll discuss it on my terms?"

At the same time, he waved a hand at two of his men nearest the door.

I tensed, ready. There were four of them, but five of us, and though they were armed, I figured with the exception of Beckett and McKay, we still came out ahead, even with the handicap of being weaponless. This might be our best chance…

Before I could move, Sheppard shook his head slightly at me. I knew what it meant. "Don't, I've got a plan. Just follow along." He did it to me often enough, and some how I kept finding myself going along even when I didn't want to, like now.

I eyed the approaching men with promised violence, but I held still. Teyla had once told me not to do everything Sheppard said, that some times we had to use our own discretion on whether or not to follow his orders, and I wondered if this was one of those times, because I really didn't want them taking him without a fight. But as a member of his team, I knew I had to trust in Sheppard's call. I knew that too many leaders were the one way to ensure failure. I clenched my hands into fists and stayed still. I hoped he knew what he was doing -- that there'd be a better time to make an escape.

They hauled Sheppard and McKay out, and I didn't do anything until the door shut behind them and latched with a sickening click. That's when I released my frustration, lunging forward. I pounded my fists against it angrily, as if my effort would break it open and I could get us all out of here.

Teyla's hands on my arms stopped the useless banging, but I turned away, pissed. "We shouldn't have let them be taken," I growled.

"We had no choice."

I let her push me towards the wall where Beckett was at. He was standing still and staring at the door as if they were still there. I narrowed my eyes and leaned in towards him. "Doc?"

His eyes moved, locked on to mine, and his eyebrows scrunched together. "Where'd they take them?"

Nowhere good, is what I wanted to say, but I knew what was going through Beckett's mind. He was learning first hand about more bad things and for a man already half afraid of his shadow, it wasn't a good idea to stride roughly in stating the obvious. I sighed, because one thing I wasn't really good at, was being patient and considerate. That was another thing McKay and I had in common. The only difference -- he berated, and I ignored. But looking at Doc now, I knew he couldn't be ignored. I jerked my head at Teyla, telling her to get over here. She was the one with the ability to get people to relax.

She moved in, and I moved away. I listened to her soft murmurs as she assured Beckett they weren't going to hurt Sheppard and McKay, and I didn't say anything about her lie. It wasn't likely to be life-threatening, but I figured that they'd hurt them -- and us, when our time came -- especially knowing the two like I'd come to know in the short time I'd been with them. I figured the odds of them coming back with anything less than a bloody nose was asking for a miracle. Sheppard could be flippant in even the worst situations, and McKay could be abrasive and rude, and it didn't seem to matter if they were staring down the wrong end of death.

Not long after they'd been taken away, new guards arrived, these ones wearing yellow shirts, and looking a lot younger. There were more of them and they were heavily armed and standing far enough back that I knew we weren't making a break for it here. We were led out of the room; Teyla got the youngest guard to confess it was only a holding cell. The corridor ended in a transporter and I made a mental note of the painted yellow four on the wall. We were shoved in, and the doors shut behind us. When they opened again we were on another level, this one labeled with a five. It was loud, and we could hear the cries and shouts of others. This hall had a lot of doors on both sides, and there was another group of kids in yellow shirts with a few older in green waiting for us.

Beckett didn't balk when we were led to what was a more permanent cell. I scanned it and counted six beds, two beds stacked on top of each other so that there were three total frames, in a neat row towards the back. A small alcove in a corner farthest away smelled enough for me to guess what it was. They shoved us in and began to back out, moving to close the door, but I turned and demanded roughly, "What about the other two that were caught with us?"

The green guy, this one with hair to his shoulders and looking like it needed to be shaved, smiled in a way that made me feel like I'd been dumped in a slime bath. "When they are finished with their debriefing, they'll be brought here." His eyes slid over to Beckett and Teyla, "Then you three will have your turn."

I curled my lip back. "Can't wait," I promised.

He glared, and waved the others guarding us to move, before shutting the door. Beckett had found a bunk and sat down, shaking his head. "I told her I didn't want to go on this mission, and see where I am -- stunned, stuck on a spaceship, going who knows where, in a cell that smells like a sewer, and --" he looked up and caught me staring at him. "No offense, Ronon, but this never happens to Major Lorne's team."

"What about the time they were captured and used for their ATA gene?" I reminded him.

Teyla smiled and turned away quickly to hide it, while Beckett glared at both of us. "That was once -- one time, and they all came back alive."

I snorted. "A little bit lighter in blood, too."

Beckett's lips thinned and he raised his eyes up to the ceiling. "And I gave up my Mum's haggis for this," before stretching out on the bed and purposefully shutting his eyes.

Seeing that I didn't know what haggis was anyway, I let the Doc retreat. I paced our cell feeling like a caged animal, at least long enough to satisfy my mind that there wasn't an easy way out of here. I guessed an hour or two had passed since they'd taken Sheppard and McKay from the holding cell, maybe thirty or more minutes since we'd been moved, when the door finally clicked, and I spun around, automatically ready to act if I had to -- if I could.

It slid open, revealing two bloodied but familiar faces wearing clothes that looked like brown infirmary scrubs. They were shoved in hard enough that they both fell forward. I didn't have time to think, I reached forward and plucked McKay out of the air, and saw Teyla doing the same for Sheppard. The cloth wasn't as thin or as soft as the infirmary clothes I'd mistakenly compared them too. I pulled McKay towards the beds in the rear and set him on one, noticing Beckett had responded as well and was moving off his bed and towards us. Teyla had tried to do the same with Sheppard, but he'd pushed her away and stood on unsteady feet.

His eyes were hard as he glared at Varak, who I saw standing off to the side. "You're making a mistake, Varak."

The mercenary looked amused. "They all say that, Crichton." He gestured at the change of clothes for McKay and Sheppard. "And they all went on to serve their new masters or die."

I let Beckett and Teyla take over with McKay, and moved to stand by Sheppard. "I've defeated better," I said, keeping my tone deceptively mild, but the veiled threat was clear enough.

"And I've sold better," returned Varak without pausing. He gestured for the guys with guns to assume positions while men in green swarmed in the room. "Your turn," he said to me. "If you're half as cooperative as your friend here, we're going to have a good time."

"You're a right bastard, aren't you," swore Beckett from behind, anger over McKay and Sheppard's condition overriding his fear.

Varak smiled tightly. "Out here we lack the luxury of being nice." He moved till he stood in front of Sheppard, lifted his chin with lean calloused fingers and wiped at one of the trails of blood going from his nose to his lip. Sheppard yanked his head back, seething from being in a position where he couldn't do anything.

The mercenary read Sheppard's body language and smiled ruefully, "All we want is to make a living, to stay alive. That's not so much, is it?"

"Slavers," I spat. "Scum of the galaxy -- living off other people's lives."

"The Wraith do it!" Varak responded in sudden fury, clenching his fists. He stepped closer to me, his eyes radiating coldness. "You should know, Runner -- more than any one in this room -- that you do what you have to in order to survive."

Teyla's response was blunt. "Not everyone does the things you do."

I wanted to add that not everyone _enjoyed_ doing it, either, and I had no illusions about Varak -- or myself. He liked the power.

"Not everyone manages to stay alive, either." He turned to his guards. "Take the Runner -- once you've got him secured, come back for the other two and take them to the interrogation rooms on the other side of deck four."

Everything in me screamed to fight back, but I looked at Sheppard. He was barely on his feet and wouldn't be any help, and Varak must have learned enough to know to be more careful because there were a lot more than three guards this time. I glanced back and saw Beckett working on McKay, and knew this wasn't the time, but I also knew Varak would do his best to make sure I wasn't in any shape to fight if I let myself be taken now. I looked again at Sheppard and saw the slight shake of his head. He wanted to wait for a better time, a better opportunity. McKay's phase generator, though how they figured to convince Varak to give us our gear, I didn't know.

The guards moved forward to grab each of my arms, and move me forcibly, but I wasn't moving. I breathed out angrily, nostrils flaring, as I stared down the mercenary. He met my stare and waited. A second went by then another, and still I didn't move, torn between my instincts to fight and my promise to take orders from Sheppard. The guards holding me tried to move me again but they weren't big and I wasn't easily manhandled.

When Varak finally moved to break the stalemate, I didn't have it right. The other guards didn't come at me. The mercenary took a rifle from one of his guards and slammed the handle end into Sheppard's head so hard he collapsed without uttering a sound. We supplied what he hadn't. I growled and jumped for the nearest guard, soon to be a dead man, because that's what he'd be when I was finished. I dimly heard the outraged shouts from behind me. Varak's men didn't have time to prevent me from grabbing on to the guy in green, but before I could snap his neck and take the weapon, I felt the impact of the stunner, and collapsed into the black.

OoO

When I woke up, I was cuffed to a chair. Varak was gone, but he'd left me in the care of a few other green shirts. So far I'd figured that black was the lead rank, green under that and then yellow seemed to be the lowest we'd seen.

The guards began to do their job, trying to get me to talk. They started with the standard 'what's your name', but they'd gotten what they thought was my name earlier, probably from McKay. I doubted Sheppard admitted anything. It was part of the game -- you can't change your nature, so we made it work for us. It let McKay spill our story, and made it believable, while keeping him from getting hurt worse than if he had to fight to keep our true identities secret.

I wasn't planning on talking; I'd learned that the silent treatment made the enemy sloppy. They'd get frustrated and make mistakes.

The guards thought they could convince me otherwise, but my guess about how far they were willing to go seemed to be right, because other than bruises and drawing blood, they didn't do anything else. No broken bones or burns. If I hadn't been resolved to stay quiet, I'd have enjoyed taunting them; make them go too far and hurt me more than they should. Varak would probably space 'em and then wouldn't that be a shame.

In the end, all the guys in green did was hit, smack and curse. If we were being sold as slaves, they didn't _need_ the information, other than checking the bounty lists, which is exactly why they wouldn't get the truth from us.

The new Genii leader had agreed to withdraw the price on the heads of any ATA carriers but that didn't make the posters already out there disappear or mean if he was offered the lead team, including Beckett, that he wouldn't turn a blind eye to the agreement. I'd seen his level of loyalty when he'd killed Cowen.

There had been a saying on Sateda. 'Don't tempt the Mudsnap and weep when your arm is bit off' -- as kids, it'd been a game frowned on by the adults. The Mudsnap was a predator that lived in the river, and we'd see who'd dangle raw meat the lowest and hold on the longest when the blood dripping would draw a Mudsnap near. I'd done it more than once, and had a scar to show for it. The analogy worked with the Genii…I wouldn't make the mistake of dangling ourselves for them to come and snap at.

"D'Argo, is it," green shirt drawled. "You can stop the silence. We already know you five are refugees, running from the law on your homeworld. Makes it a lot easier to sell you." He waited but all I gave him was more silence. His face darkened. "Varak wants to know how you got that tracker out of your neck. He wants to know how a Runner managed to live. Were you handed over to the Wraith by your government and rescued by your friends?" The questions were sent out one on top of the other and I ignored each one. He chewed over my refusal to answer, waiting, and then swore at me, backhanding me so hard he split the skin above my eyebrow.

I shook my head, trying to get the blood out of my eyes. When I only made it worse, I stopped and smiled wolfishly at the man.

Another one stepped in and slammed a fist into my stomach, and even tensing for it, I still felt the air rush out with the impact. I could snap their necks without breaking a sweat, but cuffed like this, I couldn't do anything. Something I promised myself wouldn't happen again.

I lost track of more time. They left me alone in the room, cuffed, and trying to blink the blood out of my eyes, still. When they came back, Varak was with them. He took the pail of water from a yellow shirt and threw it at my face. The cold was as refreshing as it was stunning. It got the blood out of my eyes and I grinned, almost saying thanks, until I remembered that I wasn't going to say anything.

Hadn't thought I'd regret choosing that option until now.

Varak slammed the pail into the yellow's chest and came forward, predatory. His smile wasn't going past his lips to his eyes. "I hear you have an aversion to talking." He inhaled, hovering over me, too close, close enough that I smelled the unwashed stink of sweat and dirt. "All I need is for you to listen. You know what I am, and I know what you are -- a Runner who stayed alive will fetch me a lot of money. I also know the worth of your companions," he paused and looked at me, waiting for his words to sink in enough before he continued, "You know I have the control to see you get sold to a fair owner, or owners not so…" hands rested on my shoulders and his voice lowered suggestively, "…fair."

I knew what he meant. Varak was a mean bastard, but he wasn't a sick bastard. Didn't mean they weren't out there though, and what he meant was how willing he'd be to sell McKay, Beckett, Teyla and Sheppard to one. And that if I didn't talk, he'd make sure to do it.

I kept staring stonily ahead.

Varak held his position, waiting, but he finally pulled back, and I claimed at least one victory. I'd kept silent and he'd been reduced to threats, empty or not, it didn't matter, because we'd find a way out of here before we got to a planet to be sold. And I promised myself that no one would make those four do anything of the nature of Varak's insinuations. Leastways, it'd be over my dead body.

I didn't give my loyalty lightly, and I never gave my trust, but Sheppard had somehow found a way to take both despite my training and experiences that told me it was stupid to let either go. But the thing was, he'd given me the same, from him, and so had McKay and Beckett, and to a similar degree, Teyla. I know I'd lost some of her trust when I'd used her to get to Kell, and I regretted the cost of my revenge, but only that part of it.

A painful hit to my head brought me back to the room. I scowled at the green shirt responsible. Varak turned his back on me, disgusted by their inability to get me to talk, and I couldn't hide the grin, because I'd won. That earned me another hit, this time hard enough to cause things to dim, but I heard Varak order for me to be taken back.

I guessed the guards were being proactive because they hit me a few more times, enough that I couldn't shake away the edges of grey that threatened to take me under, and I was only aware enough to know I was being dragged from the room. Back to our cell, I thought sluggishly.

In the end I was right, but I lost the fight to stay conscious when I was thrown inside. When I woke up minutes later on the bed, it was to find Teyla still gone. Beckett had been taken and returned in the time they'd spent working on me, and he looked like he'd gone into a Kartak pit and lost. Yet, he was still hovering over me, peeling back my eyelids and asking questions I couldn't understand.

" 'm fine, Doc," I slurred, pushing myself up on an elbow. The room spun a little but righted fast enough.

"That's why you leered at McKay and said 'there's room for two'?" Beckett asked humorlessly.

I blinked, debated on denying it, but then I realized that Sheppard was lying motionless on the bed across from me. "He's still out?" That wasn't good.

Beckett's heavy frown answered for him.

It seemed like we were on a hill with no way down and I didn't much care for it. When I was gone, they guards had apparently brought some supplies. Food in shiny metal bowls that looked better than some of the things I'd eaten during my years as a runner, some towels, and I realized that all of us were now in new clothes. I'd woken up from the stunner blast in mine. They were the same rough spun cloth, dirt brown -- the better to hide stains.

I let Beckett fuss long enough to assure himself that I wasn't seriously hurt, something I could've told him in less time but I knew he wouldn't have believed it so I saved us both the trouble. Besides, it gave him something to do, and I figured that more than anything would keep him from falling apart.

McKay hovered over Sheppard, shrieked when a rat scurried across the room, and then demanded a new cell to nobody. I let him rant, because like Beckett, McKay needed an outlet, too. I just wished his wasn't so loud and annoying. I looked at Sheppard on the bed and figured maybe he had the right idea.

It turned into one of the longest afternoons I'd ever known, and finally I did retreat back to my bed, claiming a headache so I could get McKay to shut up and leave me alone. Only problem is that brought Beckett. I opened one eye and said, "Leave." I'm not sure if he would've or not, but Sheppard chose then to wake up and that drew Beckett away.

Teyla was returned no worse than any of us and in new clothes. She looked a lot angrier than I'd felt on my return trip and I wondered what they'd said to her. The introductions out of the way, we were now reduced to prisoner status, until we got to the planet where they were going to sell off their cargo. We'd heard enough noise to know the ship was pretty full which meant it wasn't likely to be long. That was fine with me, planetside we had a better shot at getting free, though the devices in our wrist might be a problem.

Since they hadn't came back and taken McKay or Sheppard again, I assumed we weren't being separated or interrogated anymore. I reasoned our fake names delivered by McKay (and probably Beckett), had held up enough to satisfy them. It was one less thing to worry about.

And speaking of worrying -- I watched as Beckett did more than his share, hovering next to Sheppard, who seemed to be having a hard time keeping it straight where we were and what'd happened. While Doc was busy with him, Teyla accepted McKay's help with getting her face cleaned up before she moved away from all of us and started pacing.

I slipped off my bed and headed towards her.

"Go away, Ronon." She kept pacing by the door.

"What'd they say to you?" I wasn't easily dissuaded. I wasn't the smartest boy in my unit, but sometimes perseverance paid off.

She stopped pacing and shifted her angry stare fully onto me. Then again, maybe it didn't. I went to turn away but she spoke up. "Varak has promised to sell Sheppard to…" she broke off and looked away, her eyes troubled.

"Forget what he said," I growled. I could imagine. I followed her gaze across the room. Sheppard was one of those that had been referred to as _Haresha_. His looks, body, it wasn't something I'd failed to notice, but I also knew Sheppard wasn't one. Their world was different than ours, but I knew what Varak meant. He'd sell Sheppard to the highest bidder based on his looks and the result wasn't going to be pretty. "It won't come to that," I insisted, as much for myself to hear as her. Most of all because I wouldn't let it.

She frowned at Sheppard again before turning back to me. "We must not allow it."

I didn't tell her that Varak had promised the same end for her as well as Beckett and McKay. It wouldn't help change anything and Teyla was clearly affected enough by the one threat.

We slipped into silence.

Later, with no idea of what time it was, guards arrived. A green that looked as big as me led the group of five, and all of them had their weapons trained on us. I smiled, imagining the fun I was going to have when we did manage to break free. I wasn't going to leave anyone standing.

I unnerved the guards, which is what I meant to do, but it still got us nothing. We were led into a large cargo room that had been made into some kind of common area for the captured slaves. I saw a lot of other people, men and women and even some kids, dressed like us, though not many were as beaten up. I supposed we'd looked guilty of hiding something just by what we carried and how we were dressed. It wasn't something we could change so I supposed I'd have to make an extra effort to not get ambushed again on some other world, or make sure I didn't leave any of these guys alive when we did manage to escape.

By mutual consent, we stuck together and found a table in a corner.

"Why do I feel like I'm in a bad remake of Stalag 17," bitched McKay.

Sheppard chuckled, lifting a hand to push against his head. "Better hope they don't believe in solitary confinement for mouthing off, or you'll be there a lot."

McKay rolled his eyes at Sheppard. "Ha ha, very funny. I could say something equally crude and demeaning but I won't because, see me, being the bigger man."

I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms. "I'm bigger."

"Am I missing something," Beckett interrupted. "Or is this how every escape plan begins?"

Teyla's lips teased with a smile as she said, "Doctor, this is merely their attempt at pretending that we are not as…" she looked at Sheppard with relish, "…_screwed_ as we are."

I almost laughed. Teyla and I were being corrupted by Sheppard and McKay -- my way of thinking, we'd have to try harder to make it more of a two way street. Sateda had some good swear --

"You're sitting at our table."

The interruption surprised all of us. We weren't exactly a prime group to pick on in the room, with three of us being more than capable of killing with our bare hands. I started looking down at the thick legs and followed them up, and up and by the time I got to the top of the bald, round faced man, I was smiling even more than before, slow and steady, because he was bigger than I was, and it'd been a long time since I'd fought anyone that was a challenge.

"I'm sorry," McKay began, and the words might have seemed placating, but judging from the groaning coming from Doc, every one of us knew it was anything but. "I fail to see a label?" He stared contemptuously at the brute of a man, his lips wrinkling from the smell.

Sheppard shoved McKay, hard, but I considered the table with faked intensity. "I think my friend's right," I agreed. "I don't see a name." I massaged my chin, looking forward to what I hoped would be the end result.

I got a dirty look from both Teyla and Sheppard, but McKay beamed at me. Yeah, we were a lot alike.

Just then, a punch out of nowhere sent me flying back into the table. I lurched to my feet, already shaking it off, to see a handful of other men, none of them as big as the one facing me, closing in. They wanted to fight, fine with me, because I couldn't think of anything better to do.

The bigger guy tried to punch me again, but this time I was ready, and I ducked, moving quickly to the right, and followed up with a solid hit to his gut. It was like hitting the wall. I stared upwards at him, momentarily dumbfounded, when I heard Beckett snap behind me, "Now you think twice about it, you bloody ox!"

That made me angry enough that I pulled back and spun around, bringing up my foot to plant a solid kick into the man's stomach. The only problem, he wasn't there anymore. Uh oh.

I'd like to say things got better after that, but they didn't. The others managed to hold their own, but I was losing, and fast. For every hit I got in, my opponent got in two, and they had a lot more power to them than mine did. I felt the blood running again down my face and suspected if I didn't figure something out, this wasn't going to end in our favor. That's when I caught sight of the chair. I'd been thrown down, again, and seeing how it was near…

Rolling away from another kick, I grabbed the chair, slammed it to the floor hard enough to break it, and taking the thick leg, I brandished it in front of me like it was my sword that I'd lost on the Hive ship. I grinned brutally at the now backing away man.

I saw Sheppard knock his opponent out, and then turn to the one about to return the favor to McKay. He tapped him on the shoulder and when the man turned, smiled tightly and said, "Care to pick on someone your own size?" before he delivered a punch that sent the guy flying to the floor.

"Yes, yes," McKay said, his voice muffled. "Pick on Crichton." There was a sniffling snorting sound. "Son of a bitch! You broke my nose. What the hell did I do to you? Seriously – I've never seen you before today, and this is not the way you treat strangers!"

"Save it, _Rygel._" Sheppard glared daggers at the two by his feet that'd been doing all the damage. "Animals can't be housebroken."

I appreciated his sentiments, but I still had to deal with the one that I was responsible for. He'd stopped coming at me, and I wasn't sure if it was the sharp end of the broken chair leg or the fact that Teyla had polished off the last of his group. Beckett got up and tried to help McKay with his nose, but McKay was busy whining.

"They aren't even animals," I pointed out. "They're shit." I grinned at the big guy, enjoying the taunting because it felt good after having to take Varak's abuse earlier, and not being able to say anything back. I never should've gone with the silence tactics -- I liked to mouth off as much as McKay. "I can smell them over here."

"You're funny." The guy finally spoke up. "But we'll be in touch." He sauntered away and that's when I realized the guards were moving across the room towards us. I threw the stick to the ground, knowing we were going to regret it when they got here.

We did regret it, because their idea of breaking up fights, even when it was obvious the fight was already broken, was to hit everyone with stunners.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: thanks so much for the reviews, you guys make my day! Also, a special thanks to gaffer for putting a rush to get part two back to me so I could post it for you all._

I woke up first, on one of the bottom bunks, and realized the combination of beatings and stunnings hadn't done a lot for my stomach. I barely made it to the alcove before I lost the fight to keep my food down.

While I was throwing up the meal we'd had earlier, Beckett and McKay woke next, and just as I finished, McKay ran in, taking up the bowl. Maybe Beckett had a secret to keeping things down, because he managed to do what we couldn't, and kept the food inside where it belonged.

I moved slowly back to my bed and sat down, regretting everything that had happened since I'd gotten up today. "Sheppard should be up," I pointed out with a raspy voice. It stank worse in our cell, and it was all I could do to keep from running back and hauling McKay away from the bowl. The smell was nauseating.

Doc began to shake his head but stopped short with a groan. "Varak's earlier hit gave him a mild concussion -- combine that with another hit from the stunners and it's not surprising. Give me a moment and I'll check on him."

I sniffed, trying to get rid of the smell, and when that didn't work, I moved to the farthest bed away from the alcove. McKay finished retching, and came out, his eyes finding his bed…and me on it. "No way," he said flatly. "Move."

"Possession is nine-tenths of the law." I echoed the saying he'd crowed on Atlantis when he'd snatched the last brownie at dinner. I wasn't going back to my bed; besides, I hadn't been given a choice anymore than he had. Where we woke up just happened to be where the guards had dumped us.

"That only applies to brownies, and anything else that ends in my favor," he grouched, shuffling forward to fall down next to me. "Fine, we'll share, but keep your paws to yourself."

I shrugged. I was also going to get the brownie next time. I'd talked to the cook afterwards and made him understand I didn't like the slippery dessert they called Jell-O and that my happiness was his happiness. I had a new one for McKay; intimidation is ten tenths of the law.

Beckett groaned some then changed to moans, before he finally dropped from one of the top bunks. He grabbed his stomach and swore. "When we get home, I promise I'm threatening mutiny if she ever tries to send me with your team, Lorne's team, _any_ team."

"We're not so bad, Doc," I argued.

McKay brightened and with forced cheerfulness snarled, "Certainly, we love this sort of thing. A free ride on the HMS Caritas, all you can sleep stunner buffet and a courtesy beating!"

"Stop being an ass, Rodney." Beckett stood on his toes to peer at Sheppard's eyes, dropped to his heels, tip-toed again, before he turned to face me. "Ronon?"

Knowing what he needed and doing it were two different things, but I got to my feet, stuffed the roiling stomach as far away in the back of my mind as possible, and stumbled to the middle bunk where Sheppard was lying unconscious and oblivious on the top bed. They couldn't have done us a good turn by putting him on the bottom. I grabbed as firmly as I could onto his left arm and waist, pulling him towards me. As his bulk slipped into my chest, I stumbled back, and we both almost went down in a heap, but Beckett got his legs.

"Easy, lad, I'd prefer we not give him another lump to go with the one already causing the trouble."

"Should've left him up there then," I grunted. The effort made me fight with my stomach again, something I wasn't thanking the Doc for, but looking at Sheppard's pale face wasn't helping much either. "He going to be okay?"

"I hope so, but right now your guess is as good as mine."

We got him shoved on to the bottom bunk and mostly straightened out, but Doc wasn't paying me much attention now, and I looked over at McKay to see the same anxiety I felt reflected on him. I didn't hover over Beckett, instead, I checked on the bunk above McKay where Teyla was beginning to waken.

She didn't do any better than we had in keeping her food in her belly, but she got finished with the emptying faster than we'd done. When she'd finished rinsing her mouth, she came out from the alcove and moved to Beckett's side, staring worriedly at Sheppard. "Carson?" she asked softly.

His troubled eyes met hers.

I gritted my teeth together. Turning to the door, I strode over and started banging. "Get in here!" I shouted. I wasn't having fun anymore. Varak wanted slaves, not dead bodies. I pounded harder, throwing my whole body into it.

When the door opened abruptly, I almost brought a fist down on an unsuspecting guard dressed in a yellow shirt. He jumped backwards and tumbled into… "You," I snarled, leaping forward, and wrapping my hands around the big guy's neck. This was the one that had started the fight and gotten us all stunned _again_, ultimately causing Sheppard's deterioration.

The man wasn't expecting it, and while he was bigger than I was, I had the advantage of rage driven fury. His hands came up to cover mine, and he tried to pry them away, gasping all the while for air. The guard dropped his stunner weapon, jumped on my back, and tried to pull me off him.

McKay jumped on the yellow's back in turn, I caught sight of them careening off to my left and I didn't bother relaxing my hold.

"I..I'm…try…try…he…lp," the man gasped through a purpling face, his hands beginning to lose strength.

"Ronon," Teyla called, "let him go."

My teeth ground together as I fought against the conflicting urges. The part of me that wanted to go ahead and kill him fought against the part of me that wanted to listen to Teyla. With a final growl of anger, I shoved him back, and turned away before I could change my mind. Beckett was watching me with a slack-jawed expression and I wiped a hand across my mouth, walking towards him and Sheppard. "I didn't kill him, Doc." I don't know why I felt the need to explain myself, to defend what I'd done, because if it hadn't been for Teyla, I would've finished the job, and I wouldn't have been sorry.

Teyla helped him to the bunk across from Beckett. I stood by Sheppard, making sure the guy knew who I was protecting and who I wasn't. As far as I was concerned, the only thing keeping him alive was the fact that the guard had gotten free of McKay and hadn't run for help. Instead, he'd shut the door and stood out front. I could see the top of his shaved head through the small window.

The guy whose life was on the line rubbed his throat, cricked his neck, and inhaled deeply, but he gave me a few grudging looks that let me know I wasn't forgotten. "I came to help," he finally said, his voice hoarse and thin.

I peeled back my lips in a violent smile. He might be bigger than me, but I'd proved I could hold my own. He hadn't been able to get free. "Looked like it earlier," I observed sourly.

His eyes flashed, and I saw the muscles under his skin twitch. "It'd stand out if I greeted you with a hug." He cracked his knuckles. "When I've greeted everyone else with something a lot more…lasting."

"You've got to be kidding me…" McKay had moved to sit by Sheppard's head, one hand still rubbing his sore nose from earlier. "You're the local playground bully and you expect us to accept that you've suddenly converted into a paragon of trustworthiness?"

"Rodney --"

"No, Carson --" harshly, McKay cut him off, and I didn't think either one realized they'd just blown our 'cover'. "I grew up with imbeciles like this, bloodying my nose and shoving me into lockers. I know his kind, and they aren't prone to sudden fits of guilt and remorse. Whatever he's up to, it's for his benefit, not ours."

I kept my eyes pinned to the man and nodded. "I'm with McKay."

Teyla wasn't stupid, she studied the man like he was going to begin killing us at any moment, but she also waited and kept her emotions contained to the point where it was hard to tell what she was thinking. She never relaxed her guard. "I agree he is not acting from good will alone, but if two men need to dig the same well to get water, sharing the labor is not an unlikely arrangement."

McKay's eyes glossed over and he shook his head. "What?"

"The lass means we have the same goal, and we can work together to get it."

"Why didn't she just say that?"

Teyla arched an eyebrow at him.

I would've kept staring down at the guy if Sheppard hadn't chosen then to wake up. He rolled and clawed at McKay trying to get himself up, pale and desperate. Beckett looked at me. I knew what he needed, and knew I was the one in the best shape to get him to the alcove. I gave a last warning look at the man before turning and gathering Sheppard against my chest and pulling him awkwardly off the bed.

"Can I pretend you're a girl?" he mumbled against my shirt.

I pulled his body forward, and steered his clumsy feet to the left once we'd gotten past the beds. "Only if you keep your hands to yourself."

Sheppard's weight got even heavier and I grunted by the sudden change. He coughed, and gagged, and I found a way to push us both a lot faster forward. I got him there in time, and stood behind, awkwardly keeping him from falling while he emptied his stomach of the little he'd managed to eat earlier.

You see a lot when you go through training on Sateda. Accidental injuries were a part of the military life, and I had seen just about as many as I'd gotten, but holding a teammate while he threw up wasn't something I could say I'd done before, and as much as I liked Sheppard… "I'm not doing this again," I warned him. I'd get his back in a fight, but this was pushing it.

His body shook under my hands and he rolled his head to the side, looking at me all pasty-faced and sick, but he laughed weakly. "Trust me, I'd rather have that blond nurse over you any day." His movements guided me into helping him onto his shaky feet and we turned to leave, pausing only long enough for him to rinse his mouth. He patted my chest a couple times and sighed longingly, "You just don't have the same parts to be scrunched up against."

I pushed his slightly delirious self a little harder forward.

After returning Sheppard into Beckett's care, I turned to Teyla. The man had explained his plan, and confessed a name. Balder, though I'm not sure I believed it anymore than Teyla seemed too. I wondered if it wasn't a nickname for his lack of hair. Delwin had once told me to never trust a man without hair. 'Course, he'd also told me never trust anybody.

"Why would Varak's men conspire with a slave?" probed Teyla. Her eyebrow was arched in a look of disbelief that I seconded. "Have you considered that these cells are under surveillance? That the tracking devices in our arms will give us away when we move freely about the ship?"

"It isn't Varak's _men_." He rolled his knuckles along the length of his brown pants in what I recognized as growing impatience. "It's one man -- one -- the guard out there, and he's only willing to help because I promised to take him with us when we leave." Balder's eyes tracked towards the door as he added, "He's got a pregnant girlfriend that he wants to be with and Varak keeps his guards on constant duty. The only time he sees her is when the Caritas stops on her planet, which isn't often enough for him. And do you think I'd be here if the cells were watched? Varak is too arrogant to think anything can happen under his nose." He studied his own scarred wrist. "It isn't activated until the initial transaction, right now it's just a data chip -- but if we wait until we land, then it'll be too late. If you get loose in the city, they can find you. That's why I need your help."

Leaning against the metal frame of the bed, I scowled at both of them. My stomach had settled and now I was hungry. The bruises on my body weren't letting any position be comfortable, and both things together were making me grumpier than usual. "So we know why the guard's doing it, what about you?" I wasn't saying I trusted Balder, or his guard turncoat, because I didn't. I'd learned long ago you don't trust blindly, but I'd also learned there came times where you had a lot less to lose and more to gain by going along with the situation and seeing where it took you. It was the same reasoning I'd used when I'd decided to stay after Sheppard had asked me to. Then again, look how well that was turning out…

Balder looked uncomfortable…no…uncertain, for the first time; his thick eyebrows knitted to form almost a solid line of black across his forehead. I liked it.

"I was captured about a month ago." The knuckles rolled faster. "I'm big but I'm not stupid --"

"So they all say," McKay sing-songed.

I tossed him a dirty look and then got even grumpier when Balder did the same. My territory, not his. Sheppard was becoming coherent enough to become interested. He shoved hard on McKay's shoulder and narrowed his eyes at Balder. "Keep going," he ordered tightly.

"I saw the posters before I was caught. I know who you are." He lowered his voice and leaned in. "And I know Varak's men don't. If you want to keep it that way, we work together. There's a lot of things I'd like to be doing right now, and rotting in some cell about to be sold into slavery isn't one of them."

"Are you threatening us?" McKay looked at Sheppard, incredulous. "I think he's trying to blackmail us. This is crazy." He fixed his attention back on to the man. "Newsflash, Balder, we could kill you now and work straight with the guard, we don't need the middleman."

"Shut up," Sheppard muttered through clenched teeth. "Nobody is killing anybody." He paused, stared upwards, ran his words through his mind again and sighed. "Just…shut up."

"Why is that your standard response whenever you get irritated or feel like hell?"

"Why can't you follow a simple order?"

McKay's jaw clenched. "Because there's a Doctor in front of my name, not a Sergeant, Major, or Lieutenant, flyboy. The former implies independent thought, while the latter, woefully, doesn't."

Balder glanced at Teyla, looking bewildered, but he was wasting his time because she was looking at me in equal confusion. I shrugged. I didn't have any idea either. Well, I had a general idea. Anyway, apparently Beckett got the meaning of it. "If we're through, gentlemen," he said patiently, "and I use the term gentlemen very loosely -- we were discussing an escape plan, remember?"

"We need our things," I said. I pushed off the frame and walked across the room. The guard's head was still there. I turned back to them and surveyed their faces. Sheppard looked a breath away from passing out again, McKay's nose was swollen, and underneath his eyes the skin was puffed and bruised. Beckett fared the best with only one black eye and a swollen, split lip. Teyla had bruises on her head, arms, wrists, almost every bit of visible skin. I didn't want Balder to know about the phase generator. "I've got a weapon hidden away in one of the bags." It wasn't a lie, but I wasn't telling him about the Ancient technology in McKay's pack.

"The guard out there can do it," Balder agreed quickly.

Before I could say I didn't trust him -- this time out loud -- the door was opening and the guard was frantically waving at Balder. "The nightly check!"

He got up and hurried as fast as his mass allowed to the door, still rubbing his neck. Good, let him keep a reminder of what I'd do to our enemies. Before the door closed, he whispered, "Tonight you'll get your things." Then he was gone and the door was shut.

"Does anyone else not trust that guy?"

Yeah. I agreed a lot with McKay.

OoO

I'd drawn the long straw, although that was figuratively. Waiting for the guard to bring our bags was boring. Doc had told us to eat our bowls of food, and all of us except Sheppard managed. None of us missed that he hadn't.

Then the Doc had told everyone to rest.

When Sheppard had pointed out someone needed to stay awake for the returning yellow shirt, we'd drawn for the watch, but no one had straws so Teyla had yanked a handful of hair out and held up a fist. No one had let Sheppard choose.

On Sateda, nightwatch had been my favorite time. Just me, the stars, and no one else. We didn't get a lot of being alone, growing up in a squad. Here, in this pit of a cell on a ship flying through space, I didn't feel the same about the night. McKay snored, Teyla kept turning from her left to her right, and I was pretty sure Beckett wasn't asleep at all.

"Doc?" I called, testing my theory. Theory. McKay was rubbing off too much.

"What?"

I grunted softly. Least I was right, suppose that was something else from McKay, too, because I hadn't often been right before in my life. I'd done a lot of things that had worked out in the end, but not something I'd call 'right'.

"No use in both of us staying up," I pointed out. "Get some sleep."

"Have you heard Rodney?"

"Kind of hard not to."

Beckett pushed himself up on his bed, letting the dark blue blanket fall to his waist. He rubbed a tired hand through his hair and blinked blearily at Sheppard sleeping quietly in the bed to his right. McKay had taken the top of the same bed. Teyla was on a bottom one, and seeing how much she moved, I figured now why she'd taken that one over a top even after McKay had told her she was insane, that the rats the size of boots were going to carry her away.

I supposed falling off a top bed would hurt more than a rat scurrying across your body.

"Aye, that it is."

I watched as he checked on Sheppard, frowned, and made his way towards me. "How is he?"

"Do you want the truth, or the Rodney version -- the 'we're going to be fine so hold yourself together' kind?"

"The truth," I said. "I'm a big boy."

"He's got a concussion -- I'm changing my earlier assessment from mild to severe from the looks of him." He sat down next to me, next to the door. I had a knee drawn up and one of my arms resting across it, the other leg stretched against the cool floor.

"You're worried." It wasn't hard to guess Beckett's emotions. I'd thought McKay was an easy read until I'd met Doc.

He leaned his head against the wall. His brown clothes hung on him. "Certainly, I'm worried," he breathed, frustrated. "I'm worried about me, you, Rodney and Teyla -- worried about those we left behind." He stopped and shook himself. "I don't even bloody know why I'm here."

I slid a look at him. "Don't remember any of us getting much of a choice." Maybe Sheppard wasn't the only one concussed.

"Not here," he said, exasperated. "Here --" He waved his hands dramatically in a big circle.

"Still not getting it, Doc."

"The Pegasus Galaxy." His face crumpled, not exactly crying or anything embarrassing, just sort of…crumpled. "My mum baked me a going away dinner, did you know that, lad? A lovely meal, my favorites -- I had plenty of research grants, a wee puppy that adored me, and the worst thing he did was pee on the carpet." His red-rimmed eyes met mine. "No life sucking hands, no stunning weapons, and being sold into slavery, or despotic tyrannical governments trying to drain the blood from you just to get a certain gene."

"Sounds boring." I knew Beckett was working on reducing his stress levels right now so he needed me to go along with it, nod and say that he was right, it'd been better, but the truth was, given the choice between my galaxy or his, I'd have taken his. There wasn't anything for me to pretend. Still, no Wraith to kill…had to be someone to fight or boring wouldn't be far off.

He laughed a little hysterically. "Son, have you ever seen the mall parking lot at Christmas time?"

I opened my mouth to say something, not really sure what, but the door opened right next to me, and kept me from saying something stupid. Yellow shirt didn't say anything, just tossed the bags in.

Beckett got up and woke the others while I located my bag, and my knife. I hefted it in my hand and things suddenly seemed a lot better.

McKay crowed over his phase generator.

So maybe we had a couple differences.

"Don't put that thing on until it's closer to morning," cautioned Beckett. "You know we're not sure about the side effects of the device."

It'd been unspoken that McKay would be the one. Sheppard wasn't in any condition, the proof alone was in the fact that he didn't argue with us about it. Beckett was the one ready to keep McKay's brains from leaking out his ears, his statement, not mine. The plan was for McKay to find the escape hatch, wait until the following night, and then we'd break out, pick up our two conspirators and make for space.

There were a lot of things McKay had _tried_ to say but Teyla had calmly told him it'd all work out. That the escape pod would hold us all, that there'd be enough drive capabilities, that the ship would happen to be near a planet with a 'gate…

There were more things that could go wrong than right, and I didn't need to listen to him point them out, or Teyla to try and soothe us all past them. Sheppard liked to say 'think positive' but he was having a hard enough time staying awake and I don't think Beckett had enough time between Sheppard wavering unsteadily on his feet and McKay trying to put the phase generator on early, to understand how screwed we might be.

The guard poked his head in again, long enough to take the bags.

I'd tucked my knife behind my neck, hidden by my hair, and waited, lying restlessly on the bed. I didn't like McKay's pacing. Teyla's tossing. Beckett's fretting. Sheppard's…something. He had to be doing something because I was irritated by it.

Morning arrived with a lot of clanking doors. I rolled lazily to my feet and watched as the rest managed the same.

"I can do this." McKay gripped the small device, his other hand holding onto the bed frame, as if to keep himself upright.

I watched as Sheppard waved off Beckett, and stepped in front of McKay. "You sure this thing won't turn your insides out?"

The brittle laugh echoed off the metal walls. "Ninety-nine point nine," he said. "But in case you've noticed, it's always that point one percent that's the real problem, isn't it?" He looked nervously at the door. They were almost to our cell.

"Rodney." Teyla shifted worried eyes around to everyone.

"I know, I know!" He took a deep breath, smiled briefly at all of us and with his hand moving upwards to stick the object in the middle of his chest, muttered, "Beam me up, Scotty." Then he was gone.

"McKay?" I moved forward and ran my hand through the air. Nothing. I looked to Sheppard, "Is he here?"

He shook his head. "If it works like we think, he's already left."

I didn't have a head for technical plans; I'd been raised to be one thing and that was a soldier; steady, aim and fire. That'd been the end result of everything I'd needed to know. I paused, considering asking for an explanation, because I wasn't on Sateda anymore, but the door slid back to reveal a pair of greens holding stunners ready, and two more yellows carrying trays, two steel bowls brimming on each.

The green on my right scanned the room and I saw his mental count. Saw him get hung on four, restart, look under the beds. I watched with satisfaction as his face went empty with surprise, and he rushed forward to check in the alcove, then quickened his pace back, outraged that somehow one of ours was missing on his watch. He gestured for the yellows to put the bowls down and flank him, weapons out. He moved to stand in front of us. I recognized this spiked blonde haired guard. He'd been one of the more eager ones in my _debriefing_.

"Where is he?" The demand was delivered with the end of his stunner placed under my chin.

I pulled my lips back, revealing teeth. Silence.

His eyes hardened as he searched mine and read only defiance. When the stunner pulled back I made the mistake of relaxing, believing he was going to report to Varak, only to find myself falling backwards when he brought the long barrel back around, slamming into the side of my head hard enough that the shouts from Sheppard and Beckett were drowned out in a loud roar.

I rolled, trying to focus, and saw Spike gesture angrily for the guards to follow him out, then the door closed and Beckett was kneeling in my face.

"Ronon? How many fingers?"

"Four."

He stared worriedly for a beat then said, "Close enough, lad." I saw him wave at Teyla to come close. "Help me get him to the bed."

Sheppard disappeared behind the alcove and I heard running water, then he was back, handing me a wadded up rag, dampened and cooled from the water. No ice here. I took it with a grunt of thanks and shoved it against the lump forming above my ear. "Don't think he's happy." Sometimes I state the obvious.

"I think Varak will be less so." Teyla pulled the rag away and probed the lump, causing me to hiss in pain. I pushed her fingers away and put the rag back in place.

The three of us shifted our stares to Beckett, who had moved and begun to straighten our beds, out of nervousness I imagined. At first, he kept on with the blanket folding, until he realized we'd grown quiet. He looked at us in turn, expectant, waiting, until finally he pursed his lips together. "What are you staring at me for? When I worry, I clean." His eyes directed purposefully downward to my fingernails. "It's a better habit than some others."

"Varak's going to want to know where Rodney went, Doc." Sheppard took the initiative and explained.

Beckett's face paled and his hand shot up to push against his split lip. It trembled and his body language screamed panic. "I'm a doctor, not William Bloody Wallace!" He let go of the blanket and stormed a bravos away, his shoulders hunched. "How do you expect me to keep my mouth shut, Colonel?" He wasn't facing any of us and I could guess why. Doc wasn't what I'd call stoic.

The door was clicking, betraying the unlocking sequence on the other side. Sheppard's strained words sealed all our fates. "You're going to have to."

OoO

"Who let Rygel free?"

The question was delivered in tandem with a blow that made my stomach cramp, my shoulders curl forward, and breath rush out in a wheeze from my lungs.

"Who helped him escape!"

This time it was my head that whipped back. I tasted fresh blood on my lips, pulled them back to spit, even while knowing it was pointless. It was in my mouth, nostrils, coated to my face, some of it sticky already, but Varak was making sure I had a supply of new to keep it flowing.

I could feel the reassuring press of my knife blade against my back, but cuffed to the chair, I couldn't reach it. This was the gloaming. The falling, my teacher had said, the moment where everything reaches the point of turning, and one wrong move can ruin everything. The questions had come as fast as the punches, and I was drifting, losing myself inside so I couldn't break on the outside.

It'd been years since I'd thought of Delwin. He'd been my first Teacher and depending on the lesson, he'd either been my favorite or most hated. I'd been remembering a lot of his lessons lately, about trust and tactics. Sheppard and Delwin wouldn't have seen eye to eye on most of that. Delwin had lectured me not to trust. He'd given me my weapon the day I graduated from squad and said, "Here, Specialist, is the only thing in life to trust in."

Varak's fingers gripped my chin, slipping in the blood. "Stay with me, Runner. Thought you might like to know I've arranged the sale of your friends." The insinuation was thick in his words, but with blood staining my teeth red and a face so battered I couldn't feel where my eyes ended and my nose began, I didn't much care about anything less than making sure Varak paid for what he'd done when we got out of this.

And we would get out, because Delwin had been wrong. It'd taken more than twenty years for me to figure it out. That there were people that deserved trust as much as they demanded it. They took it, and they didn't think twice about it, and Delwin might roll in his grave, because I gave it, unknowingly at first, later, openly. I hadn't trusted blindly, though.

"Take him back," Varak spat, releasing my face.

Despite the pain it cost, I smiled. I'd make him pay with his life because I knew we were getting out of here. Sheppard, Beckett and Teyla had endured this, and the thought of Doc being beaten enraged me to a new level. I promised Varak death in my smile, and I knew I'd get to deliver. I trusted McKay.

"Smile now, while you can. I promise you'll have little reason to do so very soon." Varak waved for the guards to uncuff me, and when they did, I fought the urge to pull my knife and end it now, least for him. I knew if I did, I wouldn't be leaving this room alive. "Take him back to join his friends." He paused and stared at me. "Give them the medical kit to fix their cuts. I'll get less money if any of them are sick when we arrive at the markets."

OoO

I was tossed in the cell, and wasn't surprised to see I was the last to be brought back. All three were on the floor, unconscious. I climbed to my knees, stopped there, with my hands braced on my thighs. My head was spinning and it took a minute to realize that when they'd dumped me in, they'd also dumped the medical kit.

Breathing hard, I forced myself to my feet. The cell was quiet, but I could hear sounds from outside. People shouting and banging on walls.

It took time and a lot of sweat to get the three onto the bottom bunks, but I did it. I think I passed out a few times during the doing, but when it was done, I got the medical kit, and stopped at Beckett first. Fix the Doc, and let the Doc fix the others.

He looked worse than the rest of us, now, but what I saw still looked superficial. It'd been meant to inflict a lot of pain, not lasting damage. Both eyes were puffed out and dried blood flecked off under my fingers on his cheek, nose and chin. I lifted his shirt and noted the soft bruising that would hurt bad enough, but pressing down lightly, I found it was soft, not hard, which meant no internal bleeding. I'd ignored Beckett's attempts to give me medical training because it'd been part of my training on Sateda. You didn't leave squad without knowing basic battle care.

Doc groaned and his eyes fluttered open. "Did something hit me?" He rolled his head towards me, squinting.

"More than one something." I slid a hand under his back, seeing that he wanted to sit up. If it weren't for the fact that the others looked just as bad, I would've told him to stay down, but I needed his help.

The frown came and went replaced by worry. "Did I -"

"Don't know," I interrupted. It wouldn't matter anyway. "You did what you could." The last thing I needed was for Beckett to lose himself in self-pity and recriminations. If he couldn't remember what he'd said or hadn't said, they'd done enough to absolve him of any guilt.

I watched as he fought with himself, but moments later, he inhaled deep, nodded and clapped his hands against his thighs. "Right, then." His eyes locked on to my face, widened in alarm at what he saw, then quickly slid to Teyla before resting on Sheppard. "Oh, no." He stood too fast, swung back, and I caught him with my other hand.

"Steady, Doc." I kept my hand on him. "They don't want us dead."

"Could've fooled me." His reply was preoccupied because his feet were already moving him towards Sheppard. "Teyla?"

The prompt was for me. He wanted to see to Sheppard himself, probably because of the earlier concussion. He trusted me to take care of her. I jerked my head and let him go. It didn't take me long to know she was going to be fine, just like us, a lot sore, but it was damage made for show. Varak wanted to make a point. He'd wanted to give us the maximum in pain and try to get us to tell him where McKay was, but the slaver was trapped by his own greed.

If he hurt us too bad he'd lose money, and the fool didn't realize that McKay was going to cost him a lot more before it was all said and done.

"Ronon?"

The capsule I'd cracked under her nose worked, and she wrinkled her face, pulling back, searching for answers before she was fully with us. "We're all back." I moved away so she could see Beckett cleaning up Sheppard. "You okay?"

She sighed and swung her legs to the floor. "I am fine." I gave her a hand, like I'd done for Beckett. "I do wish that Varak would learn some originality. Getting beaten is growing…old."

I snorted. "You sound like McKay."

Her eyebrow rose.

"Complaining about their interrogation methods."

"Sometimes Doctor McKay's complaints are worthy." She looked both rueful and in pain as she walked past me, heading towards Beckett.

Doc moved aside to let her near. "Be thankful, lass. Varak appears to lack the imaginative methods of others." He held a hand out towards the same blanket he'd folded earlier that morning. "Hand me that, luv." When she did, he raised Sheppard's feet and tucked it under, rolling it to get as much height as he could.

"Is he going to be all right?"

Before, Beckett had always given us reassurances. That he'd be okay, that he thought so, that we needed to get him back but he was holding his own -- not this time. Doc's eyes found ours and they were sad and worried, and considering the condition that we were all in, it said too much. "Varak didn't mean to do permanent harm, but he's not a doctor. The beating he took only worsened his condition. Multiple head trauma can be a dangerous business."

One thing about Sheppard's people that bugged me was their inability to keep it simple. I folded my arms across my chest and regarded Doc, stone-faced. "Is he going to be okay?" I restated Teyla's question.

He frowned at me, and shook his head sideways. "I don't think so. Not unless Rodney pulls this off and we get him to the infirmary where I can run some tests. I'm worried there's pressure on his brain --"

"Doc," I barked. I'd had training, true, but it didn't mean I'd earned a medic's rating.

Beckett regarded me with barely restrained frustration. "Think of a fruit being squeezed in your fist."

I nodded. Better. "Pop." That'd be bad.

"Not pop." He huffed. "Brains don't go 'pop', think mush…they go mush."

"Doctor, Ronon." Teyla stepped between us. "We need to help Colonel Sheppard now." And stop arguing, she left unsaid, but I got it.

I growled in frustration and turned away, letting them clean his face free of the blood, and take care of what they could. I wanted to bang on the door again, but I didn't figure that Varak had the equipment here to help Sheppard and part of me worried if he was the kind to space a liability. I'd heard of slavers that did it. Someone was sick or dying, they'd kill them, rather than risk it passing into the rest of the population or causing problems with the others. I didn't know what Beckett had told Varak, but I wasn't going to bet Sheppard's life on slavers' kindness.

No one came to take us to the common room, and time bled into time. There wasn't anyway to guess on the passage of minutes and hours here. Beckett coaxed Sheppard awake a couple of times but he outdid his earlier confusion, calling for someone named Mitch. Teyla had looked to me and I'd returned her look, blank-faced. Whoever this Mitch was, he hadn't talked to me about him.

We'd all had lives before we'd come together as a team. Teyla had lived a life on Athos, led her people, and lived one that I could at least relate to, but Sheppard, McKay and Beckett had come from another galaxy. They didn't grow up under the threat of the Wraith. I wondered sometimes what it was like, but it never lasted long. It didn't matter, because they were here now, fighting with me, and risking everything. I'd seen what they could do.

They could've walked through the 'gate and returned to their world. They could've gotten on their ship and never looked back, but they hadn't, they didn't. And I knew they wouldn't.

I didn't know if the bowls brought to us finally were lunch or dinner, but I guessed dinner. I ate in silence, staying on the opposite side of the cell from the others. I didn't want to be over there in case anything happened. I wanted to be here when McKay showed up to let us out.

I'm not sure how long it was from the time we ate to when the door did open, but it was far enough into the night that the sounds had died down leaving quiet in its wake. I moved as fast as I could, but I was slower due to the beating I'd taken. The area was clear. No guards, no Balder. Frowning at the air, I moved a hand back and forth in the space. "McKay?"

He solidified to the left of my hand, mid-yelp. "--hell are you doing, trying to make me phase with your hand inside my stomach!"

I jerked back, surprised. "It can do that?"

McKay's face focused inward. "I don't know. However, in this I'd prefer we skip finding out, because though I may be tired, bruised and hypoglycemic, I'm still functioning enough to know that a hand inside my stomach equals something bad and wrong." He peered around me. "Sheppard? Carson, what's wrong with -- oh, no. You were all…"

Teyla had risen smoothly, if not slowly, to her feet. "It was the only way, Rodney." Before McKay could think on it more, she continued, "Where is Balder --did you find what we need?"

He beamed. "Oh, did I…anyway, the bald head and his pet guard are taking care of Varak -- better his neck than mine. And we can forget the lifeboat idea, what I found is better." For a moment, it was as if McKay had forgotten we still had to escape a slaver ship, his eyes lit up over whatever technological discovery he'd found. "I'm telling you, this thing is better than the Enterprise!"

I cleared my throat ominously and time stretched. "Enterprise?"

"Would you actually start paying attention to the movies we play on movie night," he demanded. He waggled his head back and forth, lifting his fingers to the sides of his head. "You know -- 'to go where no man has gone before'."

Bemused, I thought back to recent nights. Not 'in a galaxy, far, far away', so that ruled the Aluminum Falcon out… "Cry havoc, and let slip the God's of war." Now I remembered…remembered thinking Khan should've won. Sheppard's people had a thing for happy endings.

"That's originally Shakespeare -- and it's 'dogs of war'." McKay stared for a beat then shoved past me. "But close enough." He moved to Teyla and handed her a stunner. "Let's go, I've already taken out all the guards between us and the transporter."

I moved to take Sheppard's left arm while Beckett got his right. Like I said, sometimes I didn't get Sheppard's people. I'd thought movies were real until I'd seen Han Solo with a whip and a hat instead of his blaster and striped pants. That'd been when McKay had explained actors and fiction. When I'd told him that was stupid, he'd snapped that even Teyla's people had stories and myths, and movies were only a highly advanced form of the campfire tale. He could tell himself that until the Wraith made him into dust, didn't make it so in my mind. On my world the only fiction was the kind that got your tongue cut out.

Speaking of Sheppard, the man was deadweight, having lapsed back into oblivion. Beckett didn't seem anymore worried than he'd been before so I supposed it was something he expected, but seeing it worried me. We could've used another military trained mind that thought more like me. Teyla might be a good fighter but she wasn't ruthless like we were.

True to his word, the way to the transporter at the end of the hall was clear. I counted four green shirts stunned, but I was bothered by the absence of sound. Even though it was supposedly night on the ship, the prisoners would've been in their cells, and they wouldn't all be sleeping. A saying I'd heard before came back to me -- a hush before the fall. I hoped it wasn't going to be us doing the falling

I looked over at Teyla and saw she'd noticed.

Whatever was going down, we had one option open to us, and that was follow McKay. We stepped in, dragging Sheppard, and turned to face forward for when the doors opened on the -- the what? "Where are we going?" I supposed it didn't matter so long as McKay knew, but I'd only seen four places total. The room where I'd been questioned, the common room, our cell and the initial holding cell.

The gleam was back as McKay answered, "The bridge."

"It's not the Enterprise!" Beckett's hand slipped on Sheppard's arm for a second before he got a hold again.

His reaction didn't faze McKay. He tapped on the panel and pulled back, standing smugly next to Teyla. "I said it was _better_ than the Enterprise."

The door opened onto the bridge, least, I guessed it was that because McKay was still grinning, and there were panels with a lot of lights ahead. But as far as a bridge goes, I wasn't seeing it. "Enterprise had a Captain's chair." I remembered that much.

Sheppard's weight was pulling me down, and I wished for a chair to put _him_ in. Since there wasn't anything as nice, I led us to an area on the left. The room reminded me of a box. The opposite wall had small chairs placed in front of the lighted panels sticking out like an angled desktop with built in buttons and displays, the rest of it was open floor. The ceiling was low enough that I felt the top of my head brushing metal.

Beckett slowly let go of Sheppard, both of us leaning forward enough to ease him down without jarring him too hard. Doc stared at the empty chairs. "Is it just me, or shouldn't there be people manning the controls?"

"Autopilot," answered McKay, moving abruptly to the console in the middle when it started beeping. "Remember, I said 'better than', that's part of it…the other part," he pressed a button with unrestrained glee, "it separates." He turned to face us again. "Bad people stay in the cargo hold, good people get to keep the part with the engine."

"Enterprise separated."

I spun around. Sheppard was looking at us out of barely open eyes, his voice had been as dry as dust and about as easy to hold onto. Doc was already leaning forward, but Sheppard pushed him away. Funny thing though, it didn't work much. Beckett just insisted more and studied each eye, before he frowned. "Colonel, do you remember where you are?"

"Of course he does," McKay blustered. "And for the record, the original Enterprise didn't separate. Next Generation doesn't count." He looked thoughtfully at us. "Though I suppose I didn't clarify that, so --"

"Actually…" Sheppard reached for my leg and pulled. I pushed him back down. He tilted his head enough to give me a dirty look, but he didn't try it again. "I'm a little fuzzy on the location."

"Colonel, we are on the slave ship Caritas." Teyla had joined us and stood tensely by me. "Rodney used the phase generator to help us escape our cell." Her eyes drifted to the panel still beeping. McKay's smug look stretched for a moment before evaporating in a startled, then embarrassed expression, and his hands motioned to the controls before he sighed, and turned back to them, working towards getting the noise stopped, I hoped. "He believes we can use this ship to find another planet with a 'gate."

"I didn't say that!" He slammed a hand on the console and the beeping switched to a high-pitched wail. "I said we can separate the bad guys from the good, and make off with the motorized portion of this ship." He delivered another hard hit to the panel. The wail began to alternate from high to low.

I pulled the stunner from Teyla's hands, the one she'd taken from one of the unconscious greens, and strode the few steps across the room till I could pull McKay back. I aimed and --

"Are you nuts?"

The stunner was knocked from my hand, and an outraged McKay stared at me as if I'd killed Weir or something.

"If that noise doesn't stop, I'm going to…" what'd he say -- nuts? "I'll make it stop." I wondered if I should explain to McKay that on Sateda, being nuts meant you liked to have sex with other men? If anyone else had said that to me they would've found themselves making a new doorway with their body off of their 'Bridge', but seeing how McKay wasn't from Sateda I supposed I could let it go. That and he'd taught me some new words like --

"I'm going to be sick."

Sheppard's voice was stronger, and a lot more insistent. And his timing sucked. "Where's Balder and the other guard?" We needed to get going and find a way to a 'gate, get Sheppard back to Atlantis, and I was starting to really want to take a shower and get some sleep in my room, on my bed, alone. None of us felt much better than anyone else. The exception being Sheppard who was a lot worse off, and even with the odds in our favor right now, I wasn't one to trust in luck. The tide of fortune could leave just as fast as it arrived.

"No throwing up on my bridge!" McKay bent down, picked up the weapon and shoved it in my hand. "No stunning the controls." He strode over to the door for the transport and hit a button on the panel to the right. "Balder?" It was snapped out, thick with irritation.

"I do not think Colonel Sheppard can control this." Teyla rushed past me and found a circular container that I think was a garbage can. She dumped out paper and things that didn't look like paper, before hurrying back to Sheppard's side. Beckett took the can and helped Sheppard get a grip on the sides.

That's when the door slid open and Balder stepped forward, followed by the yellow guard…and three more green. Each one leveled a stunner at us. I ground my teeth together and tried to block out the sounds of Sheppard retching and McKay shouting that a double cross was unfair and completely wrong. Balder looked more than happy with himself, and I knew I looked anything but. We'd known we were taking a chance in going along with him, but we'd had nothing to lose. Balder had been able to make the deal that got us our gear, and without it, we wouldn't have even made it this far.

I'd learned another lesson from Delwin when I was a boy. Never fail to repay your debts. I let the menacing grin snake across my face and pointed the stunner in my hands, now useless against the outnumbered odds staring us down, and promised, "You're dead."

OoO

Sheppard had stopped throwing up, and now rested, shaky and too pale, propped against the wall. His one eye didn't open much anymore because of the swelling, but his other followed Balder and his new partners as they moved restlessly around – the greens lingered by the transporter, something I found suspicious, but Balder apparently didn't. McKay's claim that the man was stupid was proving more and more likely.

I'd suspected he wasn't trustworthy, but the knowing didn't make it any better. Balder had come to believe that Varak's loss was his gain. He was going to take the ship to the planet and sell the cargo like planned, taking the money for his own use. He wouldn't admit to what his plans for us were, but it didn't take much to know the end result wasn't going to be good. I figured there were three possibilities; sold as Varak had originally planned, turned over to the Genii -- seeing how Balder knew who we were, or killed. The only real irony, one I thought kind of poetic, was that the cells below were filled with some new slaves. Varak, and all the rest of his guards, minus the four back stabbing mercenaries.

Balder hadn't accepted many to join him, not enough to stage another coup against him, or so he thought. He kept an eye on his new partners, and always kept his distance, but even with a stunner, he was one against their four and if he thought I'd help him when they tried to take him down for the same reasons they were helping him, he was wrong. I was more than prepared to let them take each other out.

One of the green guards had started to show McKay how to bring up the navigation system and program the autopilot for another destination, and even as he did that, the guard worked to shut off the noise. It was something about a coolant failure -- I still wasn't sure if it was fixed.

"What are you doing?" Balder strode across the rectangular length, grabbed McKay and forced him towards the far left wall where I'd been told to go after Balder had secured our weapons. "Don't show him how to use the ship!"

We were now all crowded together there. Beckett had refused to move Sheppard, and Teyla had taken a defensive position beside both. I'd known it was useless. All Balder had to do was stun us, and then we wouldn't pose a threat. The only thing that had kept him from doing it was Beckett rapidly explaining that it might cause Sheppard to die. If his intent was to hand us over to the Genii, dead wouldn't get him his bounty. Between Varak and Balder, though, I'd take Balder, because he was careless. He hadn't taken me or Teyla out with the stun guns, or even tied our hands and feet. I planned to make sure he regretted that choice.

McKay yanked his arm free from Balder's grip and settled near me, casting a quick look at Sheppard who still held onto the garbage can as if it were a lifeline. When he caught my eyes I looked at him darkly and mouthed, "Some escape."

Balder was already turning his attention back to his acquired crew.

"I didn't know," McKay whispered hotly back at me. "Next time don't threaten to shoot my controls. It makes me panic because dead controls equals dead ships and dead ships means -"

"I realize that you all seem to have the issue well in hand, but seeing how the man doesn't know about the phase generator, couldn't you use it again to cause a distraction, and let Ronon and Teyla turn the tides in our favor again, Rodney?" Beckett had a gentle hand on Sheppard's bent shoulders, but the other pressed on his knee as he leaned towards us.

I sniffed back at a new trickle of blood that had started up again in my nose. My eyes tracked to the bulge in McKay's pocket. We'd never told Balder how we were planning on getting free and I could see by the sudden gleam in McKay's eyes that he hadn't said anything about it when he'd released Balder en route to free us.

"I need a distraction to slip it on." He pressed his hand against his pocket, and keeping eyes on the five men across from us, began to move his hand slowly in until I could see he'd palmed it. His hand came back to rest on his leg, covering the little device.

The knife still pressed against my neck like it wanted action, but Teyla was already standing. We all watched as she smiled carefully and pulled the top of her shirt down enough to expose the gentle swelling of her breasts.

My leg was knocked into and when I looked irritably at the cause, McKay rolled his eyes. "The distraction's not for you." Right. I swallowed and forced my eyes off Teyla's chest.

"Lass, are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Sheppard snorted, the sound muffled because his head was still more inside the can than out. "She can hold her own, Doc."

Teyla began to saunter towards Balder, and sure enough, the man's eyes went one place, and so did the other guards. I prodded McKay and hissed, "Now!"

In a blink of an eye, McKay disappeared. I quickly slipped my knife free and cupped it in my palm, the sharp point pressed along my wrist. I put a hand on Sheppard's outstretched leg and he pulled his head out of the bin and nodded queasily. Beckett took the can, and everything happened at once. Teyla kneed Balder in the groin, the guard closest, a green, went to pull her away from Balder because she now held him in a choke hold and there wasn't any stunning her, or Balder would go down also. When the whine of the weapon sounded and both Teyla and Balder crumpled, I swore an oath to Delwin. His lessons in trust were getting a live demonstration. The double crosser had been double crossed at the worst of times.

Before the green could turn the weapon on me, I had my knife already flying towards his heart, and when he spun around to shoot, it hit home a little higher than I meant, but lethal all the same. He fell to the ground, a surprised look still on his face.

I didn't have time to pause because already the yellow was responding, and I jogged the distance separating us, and brought an elbow to his face. He was trained better than Balder, but not as good as the greens were, and there were two of them left. I sensed one moving behind me, and I grabbed on to the yellow's stunner still in his hands, and swung him around, flinging his body towards the green. He was caught fully in the stunner shot meant for me, and I dove forward, already curling my body into a roll. I came up at the end of the room where our stunners had been stacked. McKay unphased, picked one up and tossed it into my hands. The whine from another green sounded, McKay phased again and the beam hit the wall. I rolled to the right, coming up on my knee to fire. The guard fell without a sound.

That left one guard and when I spun around to find him, I saw him closing in on Sheppard and knew what he intended to do. The green knew I wouldn't stun Sheppard, so he was going to use him as a shield and get to the transporter. But the guard hadn't counted on Beckett. Doc snarled an oath to a name I didn't recognize and threw the can and it's contents at the guard's head, even while he grabbed Sheppard and pulled him to the side.

The can was solid metal and when the bile came spraying out it blinded the guard enough that he couldn't see in time to block the real damage. He fell backward from the impact and I stunned him the rest of the way into unconsciousness.

McKay unphased next to Sheppard, just in time to help Beckett, because they were both listing sideways. "I'm never going on a mission with the lot of you again, ever." Beckett's eyes were glassy and I wondered if maybe all of it wasn't catching up to him, hard. He'd been stunned, imprisoned, interrogated, beaten, and had ended up defending himself and Sheppard with a trash can. Not bad for a timid doctor.

"It's not always this bad." I was trying to reassure him.

Sheppard had groaned his way back into a sitting position, safe and steady against the wall, when he took the stunner from McKay to hold ready in case anyone else managed to get on the bridge and said, "No, normally we only get captured once. Though there was that time on Dagan --"

"Shut up." McKay stuffed the phase generator into his pocket and looked angry. "That wasn't my fault."

I was confused. Guess that'd been before my time.

"Teyla," Beckett muttered suddenly, and climbed to his feet, still looking a little shaky to me, but he hurried over to her and waved for me to come and help. "I think the lass has set a record for most times stunned during a mission." He pressed two fingers against the inside of her wrist. "I hope the effects aren't cumulative, like the Zats."

"Zats?"

Sheppard was trying to get up, and McKay was trying to keep him down. Because of it, McKay's reply was annoyed, though I thought it was a fair question.

"A weapon the Gou'ald use back home. One shot stuns, two kills, and three disintegrates." He said it absently because Sheppard, even concussed and in bad shape, was a handful.

I grinned. "I want one." I looked at the bodies littering the floor and turned back to McKay. "Why didn't you bring any here?" Seemed to me these Zats were better weapons then their guns.

Doc seemed to be happy with what he saw of Teyla. I asked with a silent look if he wanted me to move her, but he shook his head. "Leave her here, son, over there won't be any softer."

Sheppard had made it to us, stumbling and slow, but he was up. I didn't like how his eyes tended to drift and I saw Beckett didn't much either from the expression on his face. "Limited supply," Sheppard murmured answering my earlier question. He exhaled slowly, looking sick and turned to study the controls. "McKay, how long till we get to this planet?"

McKay finally gave up on his attempts to get Sheppard to sit, and moved to the middle panel, pushed a button, studied it before looking back at us. "Two hours." He pushed another button. "I think."

"You think?"

"I'm sorry, I missed the announcement wherein I became all-knowing in alien languages and technology." McKay's nostrils flared with his biting comment.

"You're the one always claiming to be a genius," Sheppard grated.

McKay stared for a minute, and I got the impression he was debating some appropriately scathing response. "Two hours." He turned his back to us and began working more on the panel.

Restraint. Either McKay was confidant or he was worried past the point of his normal acerbic self. Whichever one, didn't matter. The bridge was silent, and now I needed to secure the guards I hadn't killed. Sheppard looked like he was going to fall over, and Beckett wasn't sure whether to stay with Teyla or deal with his other stubborn patient.

In the end, turned out none of us got to worry about what we had to do. The ship lurched, shuddered, and groaned.

"What the hell is that?" Sheppard jerked forward towards McKay, but the next thing I know, I was flying backwards, and when my body hit the wall, I didn't even have time to think again just how bad this mission sucked.


	3. Chapter 3

_AN: thanks again for the reviews, I'm glad you guys are liking the ride on this one! My grammar God is swamped but I promised I'd get this up fast so with my other two beta's having given it a go, and I've pored over it, I'm posting and will edit any ones missed when she gets back to me so don't whip me too hard LOL!_

I'd been unconscious more than a couple times since we'd been ambushed, and each time I'd come 'round a lot less happy than the time before, but I was pretty sure this time was the worst. First problem was the darkness. I could make out some flickering light, sporadic flashes of brightness shifting back to dark from the shower of sparks coming from the consoles along the wall, but it wasn't enough to see reliably by.

I heard what sounded like a broken alarm, caterwauling like a wounded Skrat. My thoughts were about as jumbled as my body felt but I was starting to put some things together. There'd been an explosion, that was what had sent me flying through the air, and from the direction I'd been thrown, I suspected it'd come from…_McKay!_

Groaning, I forced my eyes open further and somehow managed to get to my knees. I remembered seeing Sheppard moving towards McKay, too slow, then Beckett shouting something.

Static hissed and crackled from somewhere in front of me, and new moans worked back towards me. "Doc?"

"I think so." It was voiced almost as a question.

I chuckled -- if Doc could joke, he wasn't dead. "Stay there, I'll come to you." I wasn't exactly steady, and I felt a wetness running down my thigh that had everything to do with how hard it was to keep that leg moving forward without it buckling underneath my weight.

I fumbled forward and to the right, at least that was where I remembered Beckett last being with Teyla. After more than a few hard won steps I hit something.

"My foot, Ronon!" Teyla's unexpected scolding made me flinch backwards and I almost fell.

"Teyla?"

She was breathing kind of hard to my ears but she was alive and awake. "Yes." There was a pause and I stared into the gloom, able to start making out the shadowy shapes in front of me. "I am here, and so is Carson. Where are Colonel Sheppard and Doctor McKay?"

"Doc?" I needed to know they were good enough for me to go looking for the other two.

"Go, I'm fine." It was strained but strong enough that I nodded at the shapes and started moving more towards the consoles. I still couldn't make out much in the darkness, but I was feeling a temperature change in the room. It was colder, and I hoped it was just my imagination that the air was getting thinner.

"Sheppard!" I called. I took another step forward and almost lost my footing. My leg bowed, and with a grimace, I paused long enough to force the knee to straighten and lock. A couple more painful awkward steps and my foot hit a wall. I looked down and could see the jutting waist high console. There hadn't been an answer to my call and that worried me. I started working my way now to the left, seeing how I'd had to go to the right to find Beckett. Another step, and I grunted as my leg completely gave, and the only thing that kept me upright was catching the console. I levered myself around to where I could follow the console with my hand and use it as a crutch.

Four more steps and I kicked into something soft. "McKay?" I tried again, and this time one of the shadowy forms moved. The console in front of me was gone, obliterated in the explosion.

"I'm here," he coughed. "Varak must've set a booby trap -- the overload," more coughing, "was probably remotely triggered." McKay's halting explanation was uttered on the backs of another long drawn out groan that wasn't his and I saw the form that had begun to move turn more. Sparks flew in front of me and in that moment I saw McKay's face, bloodied, and stark with the realization of what had happened. "Why did I think, even for a moment, that we'd have finally gotten the situation under control -- it's never that easy!" He struggled to move and I reached to help, only to find a shattered chair covered his lower half.

After I moved the debris, he got into a sitting position, and that's when I saw Sheppard. Looked like McKay had thrown himself at the other man and they'd gone down together. "Is he…" I didn't want to say it but I was sure thinking it.

"Alive," McKay supplied, but he looked worried. "I think the impact knocked him out, again, and if he survives this mission and can still qualify for Mensa, I'll be suitably impressed."

"Can you get lights?" Beckett called from behind us.

The showers of sparks weren't near enough light, and I was now pretty sure we were losing air. "I think --"

"I know." McKay cut me off. "We've lost life support." He grabbed onto my arm to pull himself up, but I hadn't expected it, and we almost went down together. I grunted from the effort of keeping my injured leg from failing and taking us both down. "Sorry, sorry – is _anyone_ not losing blood or brain cells?"

"Is that another rhetorical question?" I asked.

"No…yes…just…help me to that panel producing the brilliant, if not dangerous, light show."

Things were a little chaotic after that. I got McKay to his panel, and he used some of those words that Sheppard insisted I not use, but he got lights. That's when we realized the explosion had taken out half of the controls. At that point, Doc had asked how big of a problem. McKay's response of 'get out and push' didn't inspire a lot of confidence in the outcome.

Teyla was favoring an arm, Doc told her it was broken but we were also minus anything to use as a splint. The torn metal wasn't straight and besides, there were enough sharp edges that it would've severed something. That was my conclusion even if Doc looked a little skeptical, but I did take off my shirt and let him fashion a sling for her.

Sheppard had woken shortly after the lights were restored and by the time Beckett got to him, was already demanding a report from McKay on what'd happened. He hadn't hit his head again, he'd passed out more from the impact of his body and McKay's, and the rapid descent they'd both done to the floor. He was still tracking funny, dizzy and sick to his stomach. He shook off Beckett's concern, stood up, and weaved a crooked line to stand -- more like lean heavily -- next to McKay. He was watching McKay work, but said something low enough that I couldn't hear it from where I stood. Whatever it was, they shared another look that was as indefinable to me as how two very different men had become friends like they were. Then again, there were a lot of things about Sheppard's people that surprised me.

Though we were more or less upright, Sheppard was in no condition to save anyone and Teyla's fighting ability had been reduced because of her arm. The surface injuries we'd gotten in the earlier interrogations had been painful but more along the lines of a nuisance, but even enough nuisances will add up into a problem, and Sheppard hadn't been right since he'd taken that hit to his head in our cell. His head injury was worrying Doc a lot, but he was still coherent enough to irritate McKay so I wasn't digging his grave yet.

"Why didn't you realize it was booby trapped?"

"Because the unusually long weapon was distracting me!"

"The lack of air is going to be a lot more distracting if you don't get it fixed," Sheppard ground out between clenched teeth.

"Perhaps less arguing would be more effective in finding a solution?" Teyla posed the question as if she were scolding them like two little boys.

McKay's face darkened. "Perhaps Wonder Woman wants to whistle for her invisible jet and rescue us all?"

"You have phase generators that work on space ships?" Why hadn't they told me?

Beckett shot me a look of pity. "Son, it's a fictional cartoon."

There they go with fiction again. What's the point? My way of thinking, an invisible jet would've been a handy thing to have right about now. I might have grunted something along the lines of 'stupid' but I finished up with something worthwhile. "We need to fix the life support and get to the planet." See, I could do strategizing.

"I agree." Teyla moved to stare over McKay's shoulder. "This is a secondary system?"

McKay nodded, distracted. "Ronon, give me your knife." He held his hand out to me, not looking away from the panel.

My knife was still buried in the heart of the green guard. I scanned the floor and found his feet. Limping as fast as I could, I shoved some loose shrapnel out of the way, found the knife and pulled it free, wiping the blood on my pants. I made it back only to find all eyes on me. With an easy smile, I flipped the knife so that the handle was towards McKay, and dropped it in his still extended palm.

He swallowed. "Thanks." He turned back to the panel and muttered, "I think."

"Lad, your leg." Doc pointed at my pants.

I looked down and saw the spreading stain. I'd taken shrapnel in my thigh, which explained the pain and wetness. Sheppard's shirt smacked into my chest and I caught it out of reflex. When I raised my eyes to meet his, he grimaced and pointed to my shirt holding Teyla's arm. "Doc's going to need another bandage."

McKay snorted. "By the time we're done the only one left in a shirt will be Teyla."

Sheppard's eyebrow went up and my grin deepened.

Doc took my arm and began to tug me towards a clear spot behind us. "Sit."

I wasn't sure it was a good idea. If I got down, I was worried I wouldn't be able to get back up.

"Now would be a good time." He cleared his throat purposefully and I caught Teyla's glare when I didn't do what he wanted quick enough -- I bet she never ignored her elders as a little girl. Sheppard turned his smirk towards McKay, leaving me at their mercy, but I held her glare long enough that she turned away first, blushing. I think she was remembering that time we'd both been strung out on the enzyme. There was some unresolved tension between us and I kind of liked it. Made life interesting. Now that she wasn't staring at me, I lowered myself carefully to the floor.

As Beckett went to work on my leg after a brief warning about how much it was going to hurt, I remembered I still hadn't secured the guards that'd been merely stunned. One was dead, but the other four I hadn't checked on.

"Sheppard?"

He glanced over his shoulder at me, coughed in an effort not to gag when he moved his head too quickly, and ended up leaning sideways, spitting out the little bit of bile that'd came up. "What?"

McKay and Teyla were bent over the console, heads almost touching. I gestured my head at the bodies scattered on the floor. "Balder, two of the greens and the yellow guard -- they might still be alive."

I watched as he considered our options. We didn't have any way of securing them. He weaved to the transporter and pushed on the panel. It opened. "Doc, you done with him?"

Beckett gave a final tie on the improvised bandage. "Aye, but be careful." He kept staring at me until I acknowledged him. "I mean it, lad. It took a bit to get the bleeding stopped."

"I'll keep it in mind." Not like I had a lot of choice. Every step I took kept it in my mind.

"Help us move the ones left alive into the transporter." Sheppard was already near one of the guards in green. "This one's breathing."

Sheppard went for his arms, I went for his legs, and Doc went for his head. He started checking the man's pulse and pupils and that's when Sheppard switched from easy going to the man I'd seen before, the one that'd do whatever it took to get his team home in one piece. "Let it go, Doc. He's the bad guy and we've got a limited supply of oxygen until McKay figures out how to fix this."

"I'm not going to let him die." Beckett kept working.

I met Sheppard's frank look and he nodded soberly to me. We lifted and moved, leaving Beckett no other choice than to move out of the way. He protested but didn't stop us. We had to haul three bodies to the transporter, Balder had died when one of the legs from a chair had pierced his side and he'd bled out.

The only regret I had when we were finished was that it wasn't a big enough space to add the dead bodies. We weren't willing to risk our lives in helping the ones that still lived, but we weren't going to make them lay side by side with the dead. We carried the two corpses to the farthest right corner.

Once we were finished, Sheppard pushed the panel on the transporter. The door slid shut, sealing the guards in, and it moved down a floor. He picked up one of the stunners from the floor and bracing his arm, turned his head away, and fired. "Problem solved," he said.

McKay called, "Got it!"

We walked over; me limping, Sheppard still walking as if he were drunk, and Beckett trailed behind. Since we'd refused to let him treat the guards, he'd grown quiet, and I had a momentary bout of regret. He'd come on this mission in case there were any side effects from the phase generator, and it wound up that he was patching us together from everything else, and facing death if we couldn't pull off a miracle.

I found myself staring at McKay's back. He had blood spotting through his shirt, matted in his hair, and I realized that he wasn't even feeling it. His body had been cut by debris during the explosion and he'd covered Sheppard, protecting him from all that he could. When he'd come to right after, he'd moved straight into trying to figure out a way to get the ship stable enough for us to get to the planet. I caught Beckett's eye and realized he was thinking along the same lines.

"The planet is less than two hours away," Teyla informed us over McKay's shoulder.

Sheppard digested the information, leaned casually against the upper bulkhead in a way that was supposed to look like he was doing it for comfort instead of necessity, but I wasn't fooled. "That's good." He caught that Teyla and McKay didn't have happy looks on their faces. "Isn't it?"

McKay pointed a finger at a display. "No. Life support is out, and we've got an hour, maybe a few minutes more, until there's nothing left to breathe." His hand lifted and fell in frustration. "The trap that Varak rigged was only meant to prevent someone from taking over the navigation systems, but the guard that was working with Balder short-circuited the trap unintentionally when he shut down the warning alarm earlier. Now, we can't change course and we're going to die if we can't get this fixed."

I'd learned a lot about the ways a person can die. Mostly, it was the Wraith doing the killing, but there were other causes, especially in the military. Training with live fire was dangerous, but necessary.

"There's worse ways to go." I wanted to add 'see, Sheppard, I can do positive' but no one seemed to share my view.

"Just in case anyone else wants to volunteer that dying of asphyxiation is a pleasant way to die, the temperature is falling rapidly, and hypothermia will fast become an issue." McKay pointed to another display where there were numbers changing.

Beckett pressed two hands on each side of his bruised temple. "If it's all the same, I'd prefer we avoid hypothermia and anoxia. Rodney, you said 'got it', which implies a solution?"

McKay shared a smug look with us. "Of course, the scientist once again saves the day. The Transporter Sheppard just blasted would've taken us down two floors to where the auxiliary station is located. All I would've had to do was change the --" He stared at me and I got the impression he was looking for something I could understand, "--power relay. Now, I can probably fix the transporter, but it might not work and even if it did, my Grandma always said 'don't put all your eggs in a basket'."

What I had a hard time understanding was why he was still looking so pleased with himself. Sheppard had just blasted our miracle. Apparently Sheppard was thinking the same thing. "McKay, I'm seeing two of you, and on a good day, one is enough to give me a headache. Just -- tell us what to do, and we'll do it."

"Why is it that I never get time to do the big, awe-inspiring explanations of my genius?" He didn't say anything else, though. He pointed sourly at the left side of the bridge and Teyla left his side, moving ahead of us. We followed behind, and I realized she had my knife in her hand and was now prying at the floor. After a few awkward minutes, she was working one-handed, a square of metal came up, about half a bravos in length and width. Sheppard had already moved to help, but Beckett beat him there first, intentionally stepping in front and taking the deck plating from her just in time, because her hand had started shaking from the effort of keeping it up. She stared down into the dark hole. McKay had come up from behind us and pointed. "Secondary access tube." He clapped his hands together. "Every good space ship has them."

The only problem now was that there were only three of us in any condition to go, and one of those had no business doing anything other than treating injuries. McKay was looking a little unsteady, which left me. "I'll go." I said it before anyone else could. "Is there a way for you to talk me through it?" We didn't have our radios -- they were wherever our bags were.

"Ronon, your leg." Teyla's worry was plain, but my leg was better than her arm.

"It's fine." I'd had worse before.

I could see McKay considering our options. "Maybe," he finally said. "The panel that exploded was the main navigation, which means one of these others is probably communications. There should be a matching panel in the auxiliary room, which means I'll be able to talk you through it."

"What if there is not?"

"Then he'll come back and I'll go." McKay answered Teyla's question with tired resignation. I recognized he was losing ground, fast. Doc needed to work on getting his wounds cleaned up and stop his bleeding.

"Tell me what to do."

OoO

I'd gotten a fast lesson on replacing a power relay, and now as I inched my way down and then to the side, creeping along horizontally, I wondered if McKay's assumption would prove true. I wasn't 'thinking positive' anymore. My leg hurt too much, and everything else had constantly gone the route of FUBAR. Lorne had taught me that one -- it'd been shortly after Sheppard had rescued them from a group of villagers on the verge of sacrificing them to an effigy of a Wraith and an Ancient, locked in eternal combat -- as if their death would end it. Lorne had almost lost his head on that mission and when he'd reported on the sequence of events, I'd been in Sheppard's office. He'd said, "Sir, it was a FUBAR from the time Doctor Weir gave us a go."

I'd followed Lorne out of Sheppard's office and asked him casually what it meant. I'd learned that if I was going to fit in, I needed to figure out their slang. A lot of it I liked, and FUBAR was one I saved for special occasions. It'd been a while since I'd felt we had a mission live up to the acronym. The last one had been when the 'gate had been swallowed up by the volcano.

Yeah, I think if anything fit this particular mission, it was FUBAR. Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. If we actually got out of this alive, I'd kiss a Mudsnap.

"How's it going, Ronon?"

The shout came from behind me and above. I moved my strong leg up to push myself forward and scooted again, making another few inches of painstaking progress. "Almost there!" I shouted over my shoulder. Luckily, sound traveled in this enclosed space, and it was even luckier that I didn't have a problem being in the small area. I'd trained with a boy that couldn't stand being closed up in tight places and it'd almost cost him his life when he'd broken and run during one of our live fire exercises. We were hiding in the ditches, three walls on each side with only air above. When we'd dragged the camouflage netting over the top, shutting out that air, it'd been too much, and he'd lost his ability to control his fear. If I hadn't run after him and tackled him to the ground, he would've lost his head to a blaster shot.

I pushed myself forward by bringing up a knee, rocking my body while bracing with my other foot, and then doing it all again with my other side. I passed the notch that indicated I'd made it to the second floor. I braced myself as best as I could, and kicked with my good leg to the right of the notch, relieved when it gave after only three hits. I had to twist myself into an L shape to back through the opening. It wasn't an easy or quick move, but I managed to get through the plating and into the room.

It wasn't as big as the bridge -- smaller even than my quarters on Atlantis, and it was completely empty, except for one wall, and just like the bridge, a row of consoles stuck out, the panels blinking with lights.

I moved to the middle of the row and stared for something that I recognized. McKay had found the communications panel and showed me the switch to flip. Only problem was, I couldn't find one down here that looked like the one up there.

Frustration made me want to punch something. I wasn't going to stick my head through the hole and try to shout back and forth -- I'd gone too far to be able to hear clearly. We had less than an hour, and I could feel the cold now to a point where it was uncomfortable. We were in a race whether the lack of oxygen or the cold would finish us off because I could see my breath coming out in misty puffs in front of my face.

Forgetting communications, I searched the middle panel for a lever. There'd been a small black knob, and McKay had shown me the dual connectors. Move the lever, the panel opens to controls, and the relay was on the drop down console. The connectors performed the same job, he'd said, all I had to do was switch the wire from the main to the secondary, and the secondary to the main, because it was the main that had failed. But I didn't have communications to him, and none of these panels had the lever, either. No switch, no lever, just a lot of blinking annoying lights.

Screwed.

I wasn't going to sit back and let those people die, because now they were the ones trusting me. They were counting on me to figure this out and get it done because none of them were in a condition to do it.

Delwin had said not to trust in anything other than my weapon, but I was finding you can't live that way for long. Not if you wanted to stay alive. I wondered at the reasons that had driven Delwin to believe so strongly, but all I could dredge from my memories was a teacher with a long scar on his arm, and an intense belief that he'd been right.

It was while I thought about trust and scars and all the generalized reasons why I had to find the power relay, that I stumbled on my bad leg and fell forward. My hand hit a series of buttons, and suddenly the metal panel directly below the console whined, and dropped open, revealing the relay.

I stared at it, dumbfounded. Like Sheppard said…

After that, it took seconds. I heard the shouts filter down the access tube and knew it'd worked. Here alone, without anyone looking, I let myself drop to the floor. I felt the gusts of air begin flowing in the room and knew we'd come close to losing. My leg throbbed and I could tell it was bleeding again. Up above, Sheppard was worse off than any of us, McKay probably not much better now. Teyla, Beckett…Varak had a lot to answer for, and knowing he was somewhere a couple levels over made me want to keeping working my way to the back of the ship instead of returning to the front.

The problem with that was, at least for now, revenge took too much energy that I didn't have, and the people in the front needed me. We still had to land this ship and find the 'gate while trying to avoid the slave markets, and the implants weren't going to make it easy. Even if the tracking device wasn't activated until ownership was transferred, the scar itself was a give away.

The urge to stay like this was growing stronger, so I knew it was time to go. I didn't get to my feet on the first try, not even the second, but like Sheppard's people liked to say, third time was the charm, whatever that meant. I limped to the hole and steeled myself for the trek back. I hadn't felt this tired in a while, not since right after I'd been set loose by the Wraith with the tracker rubbing along the bone in my spine.

I was halfway up when Beckett's worried face came into focus. When he saw me nearing, he pulled back, and I moved faster. His hands grabbed my arms when I got to the top, and he helped me through and onto solid floor. "Thanks," I panted.

They were sitting near the console McKay had been working at before I'd gone down the hole. Teyla's head was tilted back, her eyes closed, and I could see the lines of pain tight around her eyes and mouth. McKay's shirt was gone, or, not so much gone, as he'd taken it off and Doc had ripped it into bandages. He had a couple on his arm, and a big one wrapped around his middle. He was talking quietly with Sheppard.

Seeing me, they looked up curious, probably wondering why I'd been a while in coming back, but they didn't ask. Or, maybe I should say, McKay was about to, I think, when Sheppard shoved him with an elbow.

"So that's it?" I was having a hard time believing that we'd been close to death and one flip of a switch made things all better. I leaned on Beckett and we walked over to join the others. "The ship lands itself?"

McKay looked irritated as he reminded me, "Like I said, better than the Enterprise -- she might not look it, but she's amazing." His eyes got that fanatic look again. "This isn't anything like what we've seen before -- it's not Ancient technology."

I suppose that was supposed to mean something to me. My blank look seemed to annoy McKay.

Exasperated, he shook his head. "It's an incredible find." Seeing me for the lost cause that I was, he swept an excited look on the others. "Don't you get it -- it means, there are other races out there with spaceflight technology, and in some ways, better than the Ancients. The systems on the Caritas are, I wouldn't say more advanced, but think of two spaceships – the first has luxury package A and the second, luxury package B. The Caritas has package A, and the Jumpers have package B. Combining the two would be the spaceship equivalent of 'all you can eat buffet'…if I could reverse engineer the flight controls and integrate the unmanned capabilities straight into the Jumpers, we could bypass using the chair as a remote…"

"Not touching my Jumpers." Sheppard said it flatly, humor evaporating.

I shook my head, finding a comfortable spot to rest and thinking Teyla had the right idea. "How soon?" I asked. Because when it did land, things were going to get tricky again. We had to find our gear, set the prisoners free and deal with the remaining guards below.

Teyla didn't move but she was the one that answered. "Forty-five minutes. Rest, Ronon, while you can."

I rolled my head to see McKay waving his hand in the argument on why the Jumpers could stand upgrades, but all I caught was something about stubborn pilots and ten thousand year old ships. The Caritas wasn't pretty, but she'd taken a beating and was still flying. Seemed to me it held up better than the Jumpers did. I hadn't been with Sheppard long and we'd already crashed a couple of times.

"When we get back to Atlantis, I'm taking a hot shower, eating double helpings of mashed potatoes, gravy and corn – all mixed up, then, I'm telling Elaine she's pulling another shift, and I'm going to sleep." Beckett sighed at the thought of it and smiled at me. "And I'm going to hold this over Elizabeth's head for every future mission she tries to send me on. By the grace of God we're alive, and nothing else but, and the phase generator was the least deadly problem." He considered for a minute before looking at McKay. "Rodney, you didn't feel any nasty side effects, did you?"

"How would I tell?" he demanded. He looked at Sheppard. "Do I look any different?"

Sheppard's amused smirk was only half its normal level, but he still tried. "I don't know, McKay, I think you might be a little see-through."

"Funny, very funny." When Sheppard raised an eyebrow, McKay's eyes widened and he stared down at his chest, worried. "No, really -- it's not, right? Because, seriously, I only read the first couple of pages."

That's about the time when Sheppard shouted "What!" Beckett added, "You could've been killed, you bloody idiot", and I took Teyla's advice.

OoO

Landfall was as smooth as a Nubbi's bottom. We weren't steady, but we stood. We armed ourselves with stunners and McKay rigged the transporter to work despite the short Sheppard had caused by blasting it earlier -- it'd taken some rewiring, but he'd done it, saving us the hard work of crawling through the access tubes. The guards that we'd shoved in the transporter were starting to come around and that earned them another round of being stunned. I didn't much feel sorry for them, especially not as we had to drag them back out of the transporter and onto the bridge. I was getting kind of tired of dragging their dead weight around.

After that was finished, we got in the now empty transporter, all five of us, and McKay set it to take us to the level we needed. There were six levels on Caritas, with the fourth, fifth and sixth back in a horizontal tier of cells.

The ship had landed on a docking pad in the middle of the slave markets. We all knew it'd be a job to get out of here alive and without being recaptured, but Varak was going to get us there or he'd find his fortunes significantly changed. We'd spotted the 'gate flying in, and it rested just outside the northern perimeter of the city. The computer core had identified the planet as Manta Prime.

It was on the periphery of the galaxy, far enough away that the Wraith didn't seem to get out here all that often, and when they did, the slave markets probably made for easy payment in lives.

We found our gear along with other prisoner's things in a room on level four. Looked like Varak sold more than just people because everything had been laid out in a pattern related to estimated value. Weapons were grouped with other weapons, clothes and personal belongings in a different area. After we'd found our clothes and hurriedly dressed, Sheppard and Teyla headed for the weapons while McKay headed for the technology.

Beckett and I just kind of hung back, nothing else to do. I'd gotten my blaster rifle and was good. I'd thought about searching through the weapons to see if I could find a replacement sword, but walking was getting hard and every extra step I could avoid was one step more I'd have towards the 'gate.

I'd asked Sheppard if he was going to be able to make it before we'd gotten into the transporter and he'd said that there wasn't a lot of choice. He was partly right and partly wrong. There wasn't a lot of choice involved when your body gave up.

We released the prisoners on the fourth level. Each deck had an exit off the ship which made one part of our job easier. The people were shown where to get their things and how to leave the ship, but beyond that, they were on their own. We couldn't escort them to safety, or give them any promises that they'd make it through the slave markets out there without someone knowing what they were or had been.

The electronic chips implanted under the skin made it a risky chance they took but it all came back to choices. They didn't have a lot. Beckett didn't have the equipment to remove them, and even if he did, there were too many people on this ship for us to help and still get ourselves out of danger. I was all for helping the helpless, but not at the expense of my own life.

On the fifth level we found four cells of guards, mostly yellow but there were a couple green. I looked to Sheppard and he said, "Stunners."

I think I was the only one really disappointed in not being able to do something worse to them, but it was still satisfying. I knew first hand how much waking up from them hurt. I thought maybe a second stun was deserved, give them a taste of what it felt like, but Beckett was looking upset. "Remember, they did worse to us," I reminded him as the last guard fell.

"Aye," Beckett responded. "But we're not them."

Maybe he wasn't, but I didn't have any problems knowing who I was, and I was the guy that'd stun twice.

The rest was filled with prisoners and we repeated what we'd done before. That left the sixth to go. We moved in carefully, knowing Varak should be somewhere on this level. Balder hadn't been all that smart, but so far, he'd done us the favor of having secured all of Varak's men.

We set the prisoners free as we came to them, checked the common room and found it empty, and continued on, stunning any guards we came to. It wasn't till we got to the end that we found Varak.

He was in a cell with three other guards and when he saw us standing outside the cell when the door slid open, the look on his face was almost worth it.

"So the slaves want revenge."

I'd promised Varak more than once that he'd regret capturing us, and now that I had him on the flip side of where he wanted to be, I smiled violently. "Not them," I said. "But I do." I pulled the trigger and had everyone but Varak down in seconds.

Sheppard pushed the barrel of my blaster down, and turned to the slaver. "He's kind of hard to control when he gets mad so listen up. We're chipped, courtesy of you, and you're going to see us through the slave markets and safely out of the city. If you do, you'll live. If not, my friend here is going to find the opportunity to finish what he wants to do."

Varak sneered. "You think you'll have the time? I say one word, and there'll be herders all over you."

"Perhaps we should thank you for letting us know to kill you now." Teyla had pulled up her P90, and staring at her battered face, I believed she'd do it.

"If he wants to keep his ship, he'll do what we want." McKay pulled the phase generator out of his pocket. "See this, you miserable excuse for a human being -- this is a trigger device for the bomb I built on your bridge. One push and your entire ship will be reduced to subatomic particles and dust."

"What?" Varak didn't quite follow what McKay had said, though from the look on his face, I guessed he had an idea.

McKay's eyes rolled and he sighed. "Space ship go boom. Got it?"

Judging from the sour expression, he got it. McKay's bluff was working -- Varak's jaw was set and scared anger radiated off him. To a slaver, his ship was everything. Without it, he couldn't get new cargo and without new cargo, he was out of a job. Didn't break my heart -- on principle, I was having a hard time with the thought of letting him go after we got out of the city.

I limped into the cell, and with the others keeping their weapons trained on Varak, I manhandled him forward and into the corridor. I shoved him ahead of Sheppard. Teyla got alongside Beckett to keep the Doc out of reach of the slaver, while McKay and Sheppard let Varak know one wrong move and he was dead.

We took the closest exit, and stepped out into the sunshine, all of us doing our best to make sure the thin red scar was hidden.

"We're going to stand out." I pointed to Teyla's sling as I said it.

Changing into our clothes had helped -- we weren't dressed like slaves anymore -- and we'd wiped off as much blood as we could, but bruises and visible cuts would make people ask questions we couldn't afford.

I could see McKay and Sheppard sizing us up, Beckett and Teyla, too. Varak though, he gave us an indifferent look. "Hardly. Half the people out there are slaves, and they're too lost in their own misery to notice anyone else's -- the other half know the way to stay alive is to mind their own business."

I could see Sheppard was judging the truth in Varak's statement. If Manta Prime was like other seedier worlds I'd been to, he wasn't lying -- though, simplifying I'd say. There were always those looking out for anything and anyone they could use to their advantage.

Beckett pulled up the collar on his uniform. "I don't see that we have much choice." He might've said it, but he didn't look any less worried.

"I agree," Teyla seconded. "We risk bringing unwanted attention by lingering." She steadied herself, looking frankly at Sheppard. "We should leave."

Sheppard didn't look happy with it, and McKay less so, but he gave us a cursory look, pausing on our weapons. "Hide your guns, but keep them ready." He turned to look past the long gangway that led out into the markets from the docking pad. "Try not to look like the escaped chain gang that we are."

With nothing left to say, he waited till we'd done our best with hiding our weapons. I'd slid my blaster into the holster on my thigh and figured that was good enough. A little visual encouragement to remind people to keep their questions to themselves couldn't hurt. Sheppard's eyes paused on it. I adjusted the setting from stun to kill. The look he gave me after was one I read well enough. Have it your way, but don't do something stupid. Only mistake he kept making was that my idea of stupid and his was different.

Satisfied that we'd done enough, Sheppard led the way into the market. It was hot and humid, and the cacophony of sounds hit us like a physical bullet. Slaves sat dejected in stalls, their neck, wrist and ankles chained and shackled to pegs. Refuse lined the mud streets.

Animals had their place, too, in nearby stalls. Different kinds were being sold for meat and breeding, and they added their own pungent smells and bleating sounds.

As we ambled from the ship, or tried too in light of all the injuries we were dealing with, people turned our way. I could see Varak scanning the crowd, probably looking for some way out of it, but when he looked back, McKay lifted the device and smiled threateningly. Varak got the message, and turned forward, dejected.

Beckett leaned in to me and whispered, "I'm not missing the fact that Rodney's used the phase generator as a bluff?"

"Nope." I kept my eyes trained on Varak's back.

"That's what I thought." Beckett's voice wasn't afraid, more like resigned. "I think the lad enjoys this more than he's let on."

I think Doc was right.

We trudged our way to the northern perimeter, winding through streets that grew less populated the further we went. We did get a few looks that probed deeper than the casual glance. Whenever someone stared too long, I'd let my hand drop purposefully to rest on my blaster. It worked well enough, and for the rest, there were enough shifty faces around that we blended in and we were able to keep walking towards our goal without being stopped. We could ignore looks -- we couldn't ignore guns.

Teyla's face had grown colder as we looked upon the depths of misery, while Sheppard's grew grim. I didn't like it, but I also knew people did terrible things to other people -- in a twist of fate, I was staring at the product of Delwin's belief.

This was an example of what he'd believed in. The utter ability of people to do terrible things to others with no more thought to it than what you would give any routine chore. Looking into some of the slaves dead eyes, I wondered how many of them had known their captors, had trusted them. I'd heard rumors on Sateda about traveling men going to other worlds and promising a life free of the Wraith, a world where food and drink were as easy to get as waking up each day, and the people never wanted for anything. I wondered how many people had believed and wound up here.

"Varak!"

The call came from a tall, skinny man walking quickly towards us. I tensed, along with everyone else. I forced myself to relax. It was easy to pretend we had business when the glances were from a distance. Up close, we might not pass inspection. I sidled closer to Varak, and shook my knife free from the wrist holster I'd gotten back from our stolen gear, and pretended to be standing close out of friendship. The tip poked into Varak's side and I felt him tense. "Smile for your friend," I ordered him quietly.

He waved, and smiled. "Hosh! What brings you to the markets this time of year? Thought you'd be home working on your next bastard!" The two men were close enough now to clasp hands, and I had to work harder at keeping the knife out of sight but close enough to remind Varak what the cost of a wrong word would be.

"Business, my friend -- always business!"

Hosh had returned the full arm clasp, and then raked his gaze over us. I pressed the knife in a little closer and smiled casually. Sheppard moved up and held his hand out. "John Crichton," he introduced himself.

"Crichton, is it? You and your friends need a doctor?"

"We're fine -- just ran into a difference of opinion at our last stop." Sheppard's explanation wasn't a lie. We'd had a big difference in opinion with Varak -- the one in which he wanted to sell us for money and we'd prefer he didn't.

Hosh took his hand and that's when I saw the exposed scar. I couldn't say anything aloud and Sheppard wasn't looking my way for me to give him a hand signal. Besides, Hosh was studying our faces in turn and he would've seen anything obvious.

The man released his hand, and when Sheppard pulled it back, the sleeve dropped down enough to cover it again. "What brings you to Manta Prime?" The question was voiced neutrally. If Hosh had seen it, he wasn't letting it show. There wasn't anything to do now but see what happened.

Teyla, Beckett and McKay tensed, but Sheppard grinned affably. "Varak offered to help me find some workers for a new section of land I bought." He kept his gaze steady, which was saying a lot in light of his head injury. "We're not staying long."

I prodded the knife against Varak's side to tell him to get rid of Hosh, now. He laughed boisterously and patted Sheppard on the back…hard. I saw Sheppard jerk forward and almost fall, but he caught himself and covered it well.

"And with that said, I suppose we better get back to it!" he boomed, a little too loudly. He held out his hand for a parting shake. "Meet me at the Northern Wraith later and we'll have drinks, I'll buy. Nothing more refreshing than a strong cup of Bana's ale after a long day of bargaining."

Hosh nodded with a friendly smile, if something had passed between the two, he was hiding it well. "I'll be there." He swept us with another last look and told Sheppard, "Nice meeting you." Then he melted away into the crowd.

I jabbed the point in a little before pulling it back. "Good job."

Teyla's eyes lingered on my wrist and I shrugged. If Hosh had seen Sheppard's scar and figured out what was happening, it still didn't change our strategy. We had one way out of here and that was up ahead.

A cart pulled by slaves came rolling up, and I steered Varak out of the way. McKay and Teyla moved to the side, while Sheppard and Beckett wound up having to move to the opposite side of the street to avoid getting ran down. Once it was gone, we joined up on the left side of the street and kept walking towards the looming wall in the distance. Some times we had to go crossways to our goal because of buildings and people, but as the day moved along, we did, too. The crowds grew even scarcer and the buildings more so. As we turned another corner, I could see the road leading to the 'gate ahead, but what I saw, made me pissed.

I closed the distance between me and Varak, grabbed his shirt, and slammed him into the wall of the nearest building. The street was mostly deserted here, and if it were anything like other holes of desperate humanity, I guessed not a lot of people would pay much notice to a fight.

"When were you going to tell us about the security gate?" I snarled, pulling him back a little just so I could slam him again against the brown brick.

"Ronon!" Sheppard tried to grab my arm, but I shook him off. It wasn't hard to do seeing how he could hardly stand.

Varak's attention was shifting to the others, trying to find someone that would help, but McKay had seen it, too. "You were going to screw us over, _again_."

"I'm a slave trader. What'd you expect?" He tried to pull free but I wasn't letting him move. "You let my entire cargo go free, it took me four months to capture that big of a load!"

I don't know who was more surprised, me or Varak, when Beckett strode up and punched him square in the face. I let him go, and he slumped to the ground. Doc wasn't doing a good job of containing his rage. "Humanity, you bloody bastard, but I should've known better than to expect it from the likes of you."

Varak got his hands up to his nose, cupping it protectively, but I was glad to see the blood beginning to snake around the edges of his fingers.

"You boke my nobe!" Varak accused as best as he could with his hands muffling his mouth.

"Shut up or I'll break your neck." Sheppard delivered his warning without any sympathy. "A broken nose is the least you deserve."

Varak still looked shocked that Beckett had hit him. We all kind of did. I gave Doc an approving look. Maybe he wasn't so timid after all. I wanted to let Beckett have at Varak more, but we still had the business of the outer security gate to get through.

"McKay, show me how to use the phase generator." Sheppard was already checking the magazine of his P90.

"Colonel, you're in no condition to go."

Beckett's assessment was true, but we didn't have a lot of choice. McKay had done well on the ship, but taking out an armed contingent guarding a city gate was a lot different than ambushing a handful of guards on a space ship. Beckett was the only other one of us with the ATA gene, and he didn't have the training to even begin to know how to take down a cadre of trained men.

McKay didn't argue. He pulled it out and handed it over. "Push this button here." He pointed to a slight depression in the middle of the small gray device. "From what I've been able to tell, there's only one setting. It's as easy as a light switch. Push in, it's on, push out, it's off."

Varak had watched confused, but now his face erupted in outrage. "You tricked me!"

"Sod off," Beckett snapped at the slaver without taking his attention from Sheppard. "If you're determined to do this, we should do a test run first, to make sure it doesn't interact with your head injury in some way. We know the technology has strong mental components, and no offense, Colonel, but your mental abilities aren't what they normally are."

"Doctor Beckett is right, Colonel."

Teyla didn't look any happier about Sheppard having to do this, but a test run was a smart choice. It'd suck to find out the phase generator wouldn't work for him once he was already out in the street in plain sight. I could read her frustration in being unable to be the one to go.

Sheppard took the device from McKay and stared at it uncertainly for a minute, then pressed the middle button. Nothing happened. He looked at us and asked, "Can you see me?"

"Unfortunately, yes." McKay snapped his fingers at Sheppard and held his hand out for the device.

"Why didn't it work?" Sheppard demanded even as he dropped it back in McKay's hand.

"Like I said, I didn't read everything -- it might be a matter of imprinting on the first user, which means I get to be Rambo, but it could also be the power source is on empty." He looked up at us and pushed in the same spot.

"Can you see me now?" Sheppard cracked.

Beckett shot him an annoyed look before he told McKay, "This was a bad time to find out the batteries aren't rechargeable."

"I'm sorry!" McKay pushed on it a few more times, as if it'd make the phase generator do what he wanted. "Do you realize how much information the Ancients have in their database for even something simple like their toilet systems? I can only read so many warnings about operating under the influence before I begin to make assumptions!"

"We'll have to make a run for it," I said to Sheppard. Without the device, it'd make our escape more dangerous, but you make do with what you have. I pointed my knife at Varak. "We can't trust him to not say something to the guards, and I'm not getting caught."

What I was trying to say was that I wasn't going to let any of us fall into the hands of these slavers again, and anyone manning that gate was probably going to become a casualty. I didn't need anyone hesitating if it came down to taking out any guards standing between us and freedom, though truthfully, I didn't think they would at this point. Maybe before, Beckett, possibly Teyla, would've objected, but not now. Not when Sheppard was near to passing out again, and all of us looked like we had nothing left. If we were caught this time, there wouldn't be any escape. We had too many wounds and we couldn't afford to take any chances.

Sheppard agreed and grudgingly ordered McKay and Teyla to keep a watch on Varak, waving at me to walk out of hearing range for the slaver. When we were far enough ahead, but still in the shadow of the last building leading down the street towards the gate, he jerked his head back towards Varak. "You think it's another ambush?" I knew his mind was turning back to the exchange with Varak's friend.

I considered the run-in with Hosh and nodded thoughtfully. "Probably. Northern gate, Northern Wraith -- he tipped him off to where we were going. And if Hosh caught a look at your scar, he'll know."

"That's what I was thinking." He didn't sound happy.

He spared a look along the wall that stretched around the city. We could see the Stargate rising beyond. "We can't double back through the city and find a different exit. He's probably got them watching anyway, just in case we suspected anything." He shifted the P90 more forward. "This is probably going to get ugly."

I knew he was hurting, and I knew he wasn't looking forward to it, but I still couldn't keep the slight grin off my face. "Yeah," I agreed.

He chuckled mirthlessly. "Don't look so happy."

I fought the grin down to as straight of a line as I could. The prospect of shooting up guards made me expectant. I had a lot of pent up frustration right now.

All of this – from the time we'd been ambushed, to seeing the stalls full of people who'd probably done nothing other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I might not agree with people who didn't stick up for themselves, but they didn't deserve to be sold into slavery. The loss of a few of Manta Prime's guards was the least we could do on our way out.

Sheppard was struggling to work out a plan, and I knew his concussion wasn't helping much. "We can use Varak as a shield, approach with our weapons hidden. When we get close enough, we bring up our guns and shoot anyone in our way." I offered him the straightforward approach. Not a lot of strategy, but I didn't see that it mattered much this time. It didn't have to be clean and precise, it just had to do the job.

He finished surveying the gate and turned to squint at me. It wasn't bright where we were standing, but the light was enough to keep adding to his headache. "Can you keep him quiet until we're near?"

"I can keep him quiet." Varak wasn't stupid. He was betting on a lot of possibilities to keep him alive. Hosh and a rescue by ambush, but he had to know by now that we suspected, the way we were hanging back and looking. He also figured he could count on the others keeping me from killing him. If he thought he was out of options, he'd go along with what we said, because Varak wasn't the kind of man to die for anything. The mistake he'd made when he captured us was that I was the kind of guy that would kill for just about everything. Threaten my life, my friends, my freedom -- it was enough in my mind.

I followed Sheppard back to our group, limping but staying close in case he started to fall. He was getting progressively worse, stumbling more often and having a hard time recovering after each one.

While Sheppard explained the plan, and McKay protested that it wasn't much of one, I latched on to Varak's shoulder and hauled him to his feet. "Time to prove you're worth more to us alive than dead," I told him ruthlessly.

In case the words didn't convince him, I shook my knife down from my wrist again, and pulled him in close, letting the point dimple his skin. "One wrong word, and your ribs get a new brother."

Varak nodded, for once wordless.

"Ready?" Sheppard addressed it to everyone but his eyes met mine.

Teyla nodded, but Beckett protested, "Not bloody likely, but I imagine this isn't a multiple choice question."

McKay's reply was to simply check the magazine in his pistol. I raked my eyes over him with a shrewd look. He might not be the most capable of us, but he was learning.

It was a straight walk to the gate once we left the cover of the buildings -- my guess was it'd be ten minutes out in the open. Sheppard led our scraggly group, Teyla and McKay took our flanks and I marched Varak up the middle, followed by Beckett. The buildings on Manta Prime were dirty and big, most over three levels high, so the shadow cast by the final one stayed with us for a few bravos. The mud in the streets dried up out here and turned to dust, away from the constant traffic and refuse that had kept it damp and mucky in the market center.

My limp grew more pronounced and I had to start gritting my teeth with the effort to keep hiding it enough so that Varak wouldn't sense my weakness. The distance shortened, and Sheppard muttered over his shoulder, "Get ready…"

The city wall was made out of blocks of yellow brick, and at least six bravos high. The ends met in a wooden gate buttressed against a building made from the same brick. It'd be hard to put our bullets through that, and anyone hiding behind it could find cover we wouldn't be able to penetrate. We got near enough that we could see the guard's faces watching us over the viewing balcony. Looked like the guard building was multiple levels and I could make out the stairs rising onto the wall. This city was built to withstand attack, which made me wonder what was on the other side of that gate, aside from the Stargate.

Suddenly Varak dropped, and grabbed something on his ankle. At first I thought he was going for a weapon, and I cursed myself for not searching him better than the brief check I'd given him before we left the Caritas, but then the tingle in my wrist clued me in that it wasn't the kind of weapon I'd been thinking about.

"You won't get away now!" Varak crowed.

Sheppard and the others had stopped and were staring at their wrists, feeling the same thing I was. The guard stepped onto the balcony, and I caught sight of Hosh standing behind. I started to shout to Sheppard to look out, when the guard brought a weapon up in the same maneuver we'd planned on using, and fired.

It was when Sheppard spun to the side and collapsed without a sound, and I saw the spray of blood, that I knew they didn't care if they captured us dead or alive. I jogged forward and shoved Varak to the side. I already had my blaster in hand, and without pausing, I fired at the slaver's back. When he slumped to the ground dead, my only regret was that I hadn't been able to make him suffer more.

Teyla had a hold on her P90 with her free arm, clumsily spraying bullets at the guards. It was enough to keep them from picking us off one by one. I got off two clear shots and saw one of the guards fall back, a smoking hole right below his neck. I fired again and saw Hosh's head practically disintegrate. The balustrade of brick was blocking anything but head shots, and they were just stupid enough to keep sticking their heads up for me to hit.

"Any friend of Varak's, is a dead friend," I vowed, as I moved as fast as my leg would take me towards the others. "Run!" I pushed McKay and waved roughly with my gun at Beckett to keep going towards the gate, while I leaned down and lifted Sheppard over my shoulder, swearing as the pressure almost collapsed my leg.

McKay and Teyla spread cover fire into the guard building. We ran for the wooden gate, firing and ducking. Blood ran down my shoulder from Sheppard and down my leg from my earlier injury. I breathed through clenched teeth and promised myself that regardless of what it took, I was getting us back.

We made it to the wooden part of the wall and I aimed my gun, thanking Delwin for the foresight of gifting me with the rare weapon that could blast through most materials. I quickly created a hole that we could duck through in less then ten shots.

Beckett took Sheppard from me, and he and McKay went through while Teyla and I kept firing at the guards. I think she got one, but they were doing their best to stay out of my line of sight after seeing Hosh decapitated. "How's your arm?" I shouted to her above the racket of gunfire.

"Fine!" I didn't think it was, because she was gritting her teeth together so hard I thought she might break a tooth, but seeing how we didn't have much of a choice, I probably shouldn't have wasted our time in asking.

I pushed Teyla through, and followed, firing a couple more rounds behind me as I went.

"Hurry!"

I didn't need Teyla's urging, I'd already seen how far we had to go. I didn't know the range of their weapons, so I ran, turning often to shoot. There were two men on the wall, and they were aiming at us. I saw McKay go down, Beckett and Sheppard falling in succession as the support from his side disappeared.

Spinning around, I aimed carefully and took out the one that I was pretty sure had gotten McKay.

"Ronon, look out!" I ducked when I heard Teyla's shout, and rolled to the side. The dirt kicked up from the round impacting where I'd been.

When I got to my feet, I saw Beckett's faced twisted in fury, as he reached for McKay's pistol, stood and aimed. The pistol kicked in his hands and time stopped as I turned to watch the wall and saw the last man fall backwards, off beyond our line of sight. I wanted to cheer Doc, but as I turned back, I saw the look on his face. The utter devastation, and at first I thought it was because he'd gotten the guard, but then it was with dread that I limped forward, suspecting what I didn't want to see. Rodney was motionless, but for the small weak rise of his chest. Sheppard's chest wasn't moving.

I swallowed back the bile that rose and looked desperately at Doc, needing him to save Sheppard. It wasn't just the Wraith that he'd saved me from. He'd taught me the other lessons of life that Delwin hadn't been able to, and in only a few months of being a member of his team. I'd given him a silent promise to always watch his back that day that he'd brought Beckett to me and gave me back my life, and I wasn't going to fail.

Teyla touched my arm and pointed ahead. "Dial Atlantis," she ordered softly. We only had moments before more men would arrive to start firing at us. I wasn't going to let him die.

There was also the increased tingling in my wrist and I was beginning to feel flushed and slow. I wondered stupidly if the devices released drugs -- it'd be easy to catch runaways. All you'd have to do is set it to release, then go retrieve the unconscious bodies. No danger, no loss of a valuable slave.

Right now though, I had a life to save, and this drug wasn't going to keep me from it when nothing else so far had. Reaching down, I slung Sheppard over my shoulder again, and ran to the DHD. My leg burned and my world narrowed as I pounded in the glyphs. I heard Beckett and Teyla dragging McKay behind. When the wormhole splashed out and settled back, I felt the zing of a projectile buzz near my arm and fly past me into the event horizon. More guards had arrived.

I watched as Teyla entered the IDC into the GDO, and hoped that no one was standing on the lower levels of the gateroom, or they might get hit by the weapon's fire that'd be chasing us all the way into the wormhole.

"Go!"

She didn't have to tell me twice. I turned and ran, and when the cold swallowed me up, I hoped some more that the other three were right behind me.

I stumbled out the other side and fell forward. The best I could do was shout for a medical team, and try to cushion the fall with Sheppard. He still wasn't breathing. Teyla, Beckett and McKay came flying through, and they all fell in a heap much the same way I had, and none of them got up.

Weir came running down the stairs and a medical team came running in the side entrance, carrying their medical kit. I was pushed out of the way. "He's not breathing -- he was hit right before we got to the 'gate."

Even though they didn't stop to talk, I knew they'd heard me. I didn't stand up because I didn't think my leg would hold me anymore, and the truth of it was, I was feeling more than a little dizzy. I looked down and noticed my leather pants were wet almost the entire length of my right leg. I wanted to explain about the devices in our wrist, the possible drugs, but my tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth.

I wondered why Beckett wasn't getting up to help with Sheppard, then I realized more of the medical personnel had arrived and now converged around the other three, and none of them were moving, still. As my head began to spin even more, I thought of another one of Sheppard's sayings. "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." And with that, I gave up on trying to stay awake.

OoO

When I woke up next, it was a lot different than the other times. I felt lethargic and fuzzy, and nothing hurt more than I could handle. My leg was propped up with a pillow, and normally I would've refused the coddling, but right now I was too tired to argue. The infirmary was dimly lit which made me think it was nighttime. Assuming we'd arrived back during the day, some time had passed since we'd made it home. _Home_. That revelation meant something, but right now I was too drugged and tired to think about it.

There were a lot more people than I realized working around me, and that was about when my mind finished remembering…_Sheppard_! As my heart beat faster, I heard the beeping of their machines match the rhythm inside my chest.

"Ronon?"

The soft voice was familiar, and I opened my eyes to find Doctor Weir leaning worriedly over me. My mouth felt dryer than the drought seasons on Sateda. "Sheppard?" I asked. "The others?"

She straightened, her face inscrutable. "They're alive. Doctor Biro was able to revive Sheppard." She paused and studied me, maybe trying to see how much I could handle. I guess I didn't pass inspection because she said, "Get some more rest, you've been through a lot. We'll talk more next time."

I wanted to tell her I hadn't been through that much, that I'd been through worse, but I figured saying that wouldn't make her feel any better, probably would've been the opposite. To my people, hardships were what they were, they just happened, Sheppard's people though, felt everyone's pain. I both admired them for it, and thought they were fools because of it.

A nurse whispered something to Elizabeth, and I watched as the color drained from her face. She was a diplomat, that I knew, and I could tell because of how quickly she covered any readable emotion on her face. She touched my shoulder lightly. "Rest, I'll be back later, I promise." Then she was gone before I could ask what was going on. I started to get up, but before I could make any progress I felt a cold flush in my hand. My eyes met the nurse's and she held the syringe up.

"Rest," she repeated firmly.

My eyes closed in small increments until I was doing what they'd wanted me to.

I'm not sure how long I slept for, but when I woke later, and I think it was the next day judging by the increase of people and light, I found Beckett sitting in the chair next to me. I was worried by the ones I didn't see.

"Doc?" I rasped.

He smiled warmly, his eyes crinkling, but he seemed to be wearing a pall of sadness that scared me, and I remember Weir's leaving my side last night after getting a message from a nurse. I fought against a sudden lump in my throat, "Sheppard, is he…"

Beckett's face scrunched in confusion, then cleared. "I'm sorry, lad -- I thought you'd remembered being told he was going to be okay."

I exhaled, and tried to hide my relief. "McKay, Teyla?" There had to be a reason why he looked like he'd lost someone.

Doc shook his head with a weary grin. "I should've known you were too out of it last night to listen." Now I was the one looking confused. He climbed to his feet and that's when I saw he was favoring his leg. "They're going to be fine. Rodney took one of those bullets to his belly and though I won't lie it's been a mess to clean, I wasn't the one doing the work. Elaine got him settled right enough. Teyla's arm has been put in a cast and I can tell you she's not happy with it, but she's resting comfortably. She's got some other injuries that are going to make her uncomfortable for a while but she'll heal. Sheppard's holding his own. I think he'll make it, but he has a recovery ahead." He waited for me to think about it before he added, "We've all had the data chips removed without any complications -- the drug it released was only a mild sedative so there'll be no lasting effects."

I looked down at my wrist, surprised to see the white gauze around it. I hadn't even felt it.

Still didn't explain why he looked depressed, but I didn't really know how to ask him. I owed Beckett almost as much as I owed Sheppard, seeing how he'd been the one that'd come to that jungle planet and cut the tracker from me, the recent parallels making me feel a little too uncomfortable.

Knowing now just how badly he hated going through the wormhole made me realize what that'd taken him to do. It's not that I didn't want to try and offer him whatever support I could, I just didn't know how.

It was another thing McKay and I had in common. Even though he came from the same world as Beckett, he was more like me in dealing with other people's fears and insecurities. If he noticed, he was more likely to tell them to get over it than anything else. I still hadn't figured out why he was intolerant of the same faults he suffered from, but everyone could be blind to their own shortcomings, like Delwin.

"Ronon, I…ah," he fumbled right about the time when I realized what this might be about. Beckett had killed a man. He was a doctor, and doctors didn't take lives -- they saved them. That was the same on my world as it was on theirs.

"The first one is always the worst." I tried to offer him consolation.

His face took on a puzzled expression. "What?"

"Killing," I explained. "Now that you've done it, it gets easier after that." I didn't think I needed to add that the men we'd killed wouldn't have had the same second thoughts over shooting us down.

I saw him repeating my words to himself, then his mouth opened in surprise. "You thought I was upset over -- no, not that, I mean, I'm not happy about it…" he babbled. "Taking a life is not something I'd ever really thought about doing, but he'd have killed me and damn near killed us at it was, so no…that's not what I'm…" He stopped talking and pursed his lips together as if preparing himself for the worst. "Son, you've got to stay off your leg, and the infirmary has a limited supply of crutches…Rodney told me about your, ah, difficulty on Nokomis…"

Crutches? His worry had been about crutches? "You don't have to worry, Doc," I assured him.

His face cleared, relieved. "Oh, good, because with the rate of injury around here I wouldn't want to be without any, and the Daedalus between trips --"

"I'm not using them."

"The hell you won't!" Now he was turning a little red. "They spent over two hours fixing that leg and I'll be damned if you're going to rip up the fine stitching. You want to walk again and keep full use of that leg you'll do what you're told."

I wasn't using them. Doc could bluster at me all day, but it'd been bad enough trying to get around with just my team watching. I wasn't going to provide entertainment for all of Atlantis. I stared at Beckett, not budging, and I saw him dig in equally deep, but a nurse arrived and staved off a battle that I was afraid I probably would've lost, at least for now, seeing how I was the one in the bed.

Whatever the nurse said, it wasn't good. Beckett's face turned from stubbornness to worry, and he retrieved a pair of crutches from the floor and started hobbling after her, turning just long enough to tell me, "This isn't finished."

It was as far as I was concerned.

Without company, I grew bored fast. I wanted to know how everyone else was doing, and all I managed to get from a nurse was that my three teammates were in what they called Critical Care. I wasn't the 'hang around the bedside' type but I made exceptions. I'd sat with McKay and Teyla while Sheppard recovered from the retrovirus, and then I'd sat with Teyla and Sheppard while McKay recovered from -- in Sheppard's words -- his Captain Nemo adventure.

When the nurses weren't looking, I got out of bed, and hopped towards the Critical Care room. It wasn't far, but by the time I got in there, I was breathing hard and even grudgingly wished for one of those crutches. I took Beckett's warning serious enough that I didn't try to put weight on my bandaged leg. I did have the IV pole to hang onto but it wasn't exactly strong and it wobbled underneath my weight.

I found Doc hovering over Sheppard, snapping orders to the nurses. I didn't like the looks of it but I was also smart enough to know I needed to stay out of the way and wait until Beckett could tell me what was going on.

I found Teyla and McKay across from Sheppard, and both were awake and watching. Kind of pissed me off knowing they got the benefit of being in here together while I laid out there alone. And that was something new. I wasn't used to caring much about anyone after seven years on the run, and having lost my entire world and everyone I cared about.

Using my IV pole still, I wheeled and hopped over to the spare bed next to McKay. I sat down and stretched my leg out, fluffed the pillows and growled, "What's wrong with him now?"

"Pressure on his brain." McKay cast a look my way and pointed to a pile of pillows next to my new bed, because I wasn't going to let them move me back, and said, "Put one of those under your leg, the elevation will help with the pain."

I reached for the pillow, debated the fact that I was now letting McKay coddle me, shrugged and shoved it under, then looked at Sheppard and thought back to on the ship when Doc had been explaining possible complications. "Brain goes mush." I didn't like the sounds of it now anymore than I had then.

McKay snorted. "Yes, brain goes mush. Unless Carson can relieve the pressure."

"Colonel Sheppard will be fine." Teyla stated it as a fact for as much of a reason as anyone would. They wanted to believe it.

I was surprised at just how much I wanted to believe it.

OoO

They wheeled Sheppard out of there minutes later and Beckett only paused long enough to notice me and say I might as well stay. I didn't tell him I hadn't planned on moving back. When McKay asked where they were taking Sheppard, he called, "To surgery."

Less than an hour later, Weir joined us. I think Beckett asked her to come keep us from storming the operating room. It was then that I learned Teyla had suffered a fracture of the bones around her eyes and nose. She looked even more swollen two days later (or was it three), but she didn't complain.

Wish the same could be said for McKay. He complained a lot.

The time moved slow and all of us seemed to be empty of any real effort to talk. Weir prodded us on what had happened.

"I let us get caught," I said flatly. It'd be a while till I forgot the cost of losing my edge. I never should've been taken off guard like that.

"Shut up," McKay berated. "Elizabeth, these guys were first rate slavers -- they had a ship with a cloaking device. There was a weapon that could mass stun people -- think Wraith culling beam, and there was nothing any of us could've done to prevent it once they realized we were there."

I shot McKay a dark look. "You didn't tell me that."

He put on an innocent expression. "I didn't say that they used it on us -- in fact, I recall clearly bad guys with guns. I just said they had the _ability_ to take us without a fight."

"Rodney." Weir's tone was like Teyla's when we started bickering and I wondered if it was a female thing no matter where you went in the universe. Wasn't like I was going to hop beds and start wrestling McKay over it.

For once though, Teyla appeared equally ruffled. "You should have explained this, Rodney."

That's when I realized I wasn't the only one blaming themselves for the disaster our mission had turned into. Funny, when I was beating myself up over it, everything seemed right, but when it was Teyla, suddenly it wasn't. I had to think about things too much since joining Sheppard's people. "Doesn't matter," I said gruffly. "We're here now."

Weir smiled tightly but she wasn't fooling any of us. She was the leader, and she bore the weight of every mission gone wrong and every life lost. I recognized the far-away look in her eyes. "That's right." The false confidence wasn't fooling any of us. She breathed in, and pushed her hands down her legs, trying to wipe away the worry, fear and guilt. "Colonel Sheppard will be fine and Atlantis will get to enjoy his team driving everyone crazy while you four recuperate."

McKay wasn't up to his normal biting retorts, and conversation dwindled after. In light of my bed change, the nurse showed up with pain medication a little later than I needed, but she didn't lecture. I drifted asleep with Weir watching over us and not knowing if Sheppard was going to be okay or not.

OoO

I dreamed that night about Delwin. He accused me of forgetting my training and told me I'd be the reason for my squad's deaths. For a time, I was the little boy, doing what he was taught and listening, taking his Teacher's words as truths because that's what you did in training. But Delwin walked up to Sheppard and pointed a pistol at his head, staring at me the entire time. "You can't keep anything that makes you weak."

I stood deathly still, waiting. If I moved, he'd shoot; I knew it. If I did anything, he'd shoot, and Sheppard would be dead.

He waited, the gun never moving, while Sheppard tried to act like he wasn't afraid. That's okay, I was afraid for both of us.

When the shot came, it wasn't Delwin's, it was Beckett. He stood behind Sheppard and dropped the gun. His hands came up and he rotated them as if they were covered in the blood of the man's life he'd just taken. His eyes met mine and I felt the sting of his grief.

I roared at a ceiling that didn't exist, up into a misty grey fog, because I'd failed to protect them.

The nightmare ended abruptly with Beckett shaking me, and for a second, I thought it'd really happened, but then I realized where I was and saw Beckett dressed now in surgical scrubs. Sheppard's bed was back across the room and he was in it, tubes everywhere, but the steady beeping and rise and fall of the machine that breathed for him assured me he was still alive.

I wanted to tell Beckett I was sorry, that he'd had to take a life and lose that little bit more of his soul, but I couldn't force the words to come. Partly because I'd grown up being taught that every man was responsible for himself, but also because I knew all I'd do is make Beckett feel worse.

A year ago it wouldn't have even occurred to me to feel guilt over something like this and I wondered if the change was a good one. Emotions got in the way, they left you vulnerable, and maybe that'd been the lesson Delwin had tried to teach, and I'd just never gotten it. It wasn't about trust, it was about caring and letting someone in to that depth. He'd used Avon as an example because as a boy, it'd been all I'd had to relate to, but he'd been the one that pushed me in the river and threw a rock at my head. And I hadn't trusted him after that.

I'd respected Kell, but I had never fully trusted or allowed myself to care about him and I guess that's why killing him for what he'd done was easy. I hadn't even thought twice, and the only thing I regretted was using Teyla to get to him. I had a hard time imagining doing the same thing if it'd been Sheppard instead of Kell.

"Must've been quite a dream." Beckett sat gingerly in the chair between my bed and McKay's. I looked around, trying to get my bearings. Weir was asleep in the chair between Teyla and me, who was also sleeping. McKay was awake and looking at me. He'd probably been the one to call for Beckett.

I couldn't help the rueful smile as I found myself repeating previous words. "I've had worse." I had, when I'd been on the run from the Wraith, and even after I'd joined Sheppard's team. The Wraith sucking the life out of you was probably the worst as far as terror goes.

"Aye, I'm sure you have," agreed Beckett.

"He's been the Wraith's boy toy." McKay never was one to think before he talked. "I think that'd give even Freddy Krueger nightmares."

It wasn't that I didn't appreciate what they were trying to do. Well, maybe I didn't, but I was trying. Even before the Wraith had changed me into a person on the run, I'd grown up in a world that encouraged strength over weakness, and emotions fell into the category of the latter. It wasn't an easy thing adjusting to being around people again, let alone learning how to interact with them like they'd grown up doing all along. Using a fork had been hard enough.

"Go to sleep, Rodney." Doc seemed to sense my uneasiness, though I wasn't sure how. I was usually pretty good at hiding those things. I could blame it on the pain medication. There was a reason I'd told him no that first time I'd met him. Pain medication dulled your senses and weakened your mind.

I expected to hear a protest, and when one didn't come, I looked over and realized McKay had already fallen asleep. He was still pale himself and facing his own battle of recovery. He had two new bags running fluid into him now that he'd become feverish. Beckett hadn't been surprised, he'd been expecting complications considering all we'd been through. But the one complication he'd expected and wanted the least lay comatose across from me.

"Doc -- you know that guard," I started finally, needing to talk about it even though I didn't know how.

"I know." Beckett sighed, shaking his head slightly. He was hunched over, and he suddenly ran his hands over his face, wincing when he'd hit a bruise harder than he meant to. "I'm trained to save lives, Ronon, and that's what I did."

I thought about what he said, and nodded. Yeah, it was what he'd done. Good enough for me. Something I still wanted to know though… "What's haggis?"

OoO

The next couple of days we spent watching over Sheppard. Even if we'd been in a condition to leave the infirmary, Beckett knew it was useless.

I was surprised to find just how much courage it took to stick around and hover. The other times, we'd had the benefit of knowing that he'd get better. There hadn't even been a question, but this time, each hour he kept living, was one more hour closer to him making it. Doc said it was a matter of his will now, if his body would begin to heal, or get worse, and there wasn't anything else he could do.

I watched each hour pass, and then the next. We broke our vigil to eat and sleep. When he finally started waking up, Teyla turned quickly away, hiding her face from us and McKay did a lot of blinking and swallowing. I just kept watching.

Doc came running, and they started checking him over to the point where we got the cold shoulder. That was okay by us, we were just across the room, and simply moved back to our beds and resumed staring.

That was until Beckett drew the curtain around after giving us a grumpy look.

It wasn't till the day after that Doc gave us the okay to visit with him. I was using the crutches, but every time he looked away, I put them in one hand and hopped. I hadn't managed to figure them out in the eight weeks we'd spent on Nokomis and I wasn't thinking this time was going to be any different. I couldn't figure out how Sheppard's people could build space ships but this wooden stick configuration was the best they could do. On Sateda, our doc's had used a surgical splinting and we'd never needed anything else. I'd thought about telling Beckett, but then I remembered my experience with McKay and explaining what a bravos was, and decided I was better off keeping my mouth shut.

Sheppard was sleepy, and kind of out of it, least I hope that's why he called me Teyla the first time. She took it more in stride than I did.

But he was Sheppard. He told McKay it looked like the bullet had given him a tummy tuck -- I'd figure out what that meant later -- and told Teyla she looked like a raccoon. Feeling like I should probably stick up for them, I was the one who told Sheppard he wouldn't need a hairbrush for a while.

I almost felt guilty when his heart monitor went crazy.

I still don't know why Doc chased us out of there after that, but like I said before, wasn't like we got chased far.

That night Weir arrived and went to talk to Sheppard. I listened to their quiet voices, and thought about the mission and what I was doing here. Like it or not, I'd agreed to stay and be a part of their world and their fight -- my fight.

I just hoped we'd win.

**The End.**


End file.
